Fission
by PencilGuardian
Summary: Responding to an evil scheme of the Master's, the Fifth Doctor is accidentally cut in half. Features Tegan, Nyssa, and the Master. COMPLETE Don't be shy, reviews and comments welcome!
1. Chapter 1

"We're never going to get out of here!"

"Brave heart, Tegan. NOW!"

Giving his companion a hearty shove, the Doctor just squeezed them both beneath the door before it slammed heavily into the floor, sealing the corridor behind them. The Doctor paused against the wall to catch his breath a moment, swiping his unruly blond forelock out of his eyes.

"Oh great! Another bloody corridor!" Tegan groused.

The Doctor composed himself and patted the frightened former airhostess' shoulder, hearing vibrations caused by their pursuers' energy blasts hitting the other side of the door. "On the bright side, at least we won't get shot."

Tegan threw off his comforting hand and wheeled around to glare at him. "Yet! And now we can't get back to the TARDIS!" Her voice had a slightly querulous quality to it and her eyes projected fear, yet her jaw was set in steel.

The Doctor had never seen anyone so skilled at turning fear to rage as Tegan Jovanka, and frankly, it was an ability that intimidated him just a bit. Rather than face her, the Doctor eyed the corridor strategically. "We're not done yet. Come on!" He started running down the corridor.

"The TARDIS is back that way!" Tegan evidently felt the need to remind him.

The Doctor tried very hard not to snap. "Yes, but the Master's transmitter is THIS way."

"I thought Nyssa was blocking out the signal from the TARDIS?" Tegan protested, hurrying to catch up.

"She is, but the Master will no doubt have planned for that and have begun switching frequencies. I can only hope Nyssa will be able to buy us enough time to destroy the transmitter before he succeeds in eluding her."

The Doctor led Tegan to an intersection in the corridor and paused.

"Which way?" Tegan asked.

The Doctor wondered the same thing. "Er, right, I think." He started down the corridor, when suddenly another bulkhead rapidly descended from the ceiling and closed it off in front of him. The Doctor pulled up, startled, causing Tegan to run into him from behind. "On the other hand..." he muttered wryly, turning around and heading down the left branch.

"Logical, as always, Doctor." Tegan's voice fairly oozed sarcasm as she kept pace with him. Suddenly, the corridor ahead of them filled with figures with guns and black body armor. "The Master's guards!" Tegan gasped. A spot on the floor in front of her sizzled from a laser blast.

"Tegan, down!" the Doctor shouted, grabbing Tegan by the arm and pulling her behind him. Flattening himself against the smooth wall, he spotted the doors of a lift just ahead. More laser blasts screamed past their heads. He managed to open the lift doors and ducked inside, pulling Tegan in after him. The Doctor could smell the hot tinge of ozone as the doors slid shut behind them. The Doctor stood still a moment, catching his breath, realizing that he was holding Tegan in a rather snug embrace. Awkwardly, he let her go and took a polite step back.

Tegan did likewise, adjusting her white jacket and smoothing her short, tousled hair. Abruptly, the lift came to life, and she staggered against the back wall. The Doctor reached out and grabbed her elbow. She quickly found her footing, however, and pulled out of his grasp. "Now what?" she demanded crossly.

"We're going down," the Doctor observed.

"I didn't touch anything," she remarked, looking up at him with her wide, brown eyes, "Did you?"

"No." The Doctor watched the display above the doors count down rapidly.

"Then, how--?"

The lift came to a jarring halt, throwing the Doctor and Tegan against each other again. The lift doors slid open, and the Doctor flinched involuntarily, expecting the worst.

A quiet second ticked by, and then:

"Doctor, look!" Tegan exclaimed.

He opened his eyes and saw Tegan standing in the doorway, staring out at a cavernous expanse ringed with catwalks that radiated like wheel spokes from a central platform. A massive computer bank pulsed with energy at the center of the platform, rising in a huge tower up to the convex ceiling. The Doctor walked over to join Tegan by the lift doors. He couldn't believe it.

"The transmitter," he murmured.

"Strange ceiling," Tegan remarked.

"It's the underside of a satellite dish," the Doctor realized. The scope of the Master's ambition was boggling, and settled in the pit of the Doctor's stomach with unease.

"It's too big to be for just this one planet," Tegan commented, her tone just as grave as his.

"He can broadcast to every world in the empire with an array this size," the Doctor confirmed, imagining for a moment what would happen if the Master were to succeed. The unbalanced ex-Time Lord wouldn't be able to hold power over so many planets, but he could certainly collapse a fair number of planetary governments in the effort. Chaos would reign for centuries.

"What are you waiting for, then? Shut it down," Tegan prodded nervously.

The Doctor ignored her for a moment as he stood in the lift doorway. The catwalks and platform appeared deserted and peaceful. No alarms were going off, and no one had apparently thought to recall the lift. "Something about this doesn't feel right," he confessed.

"Doctor, the signal," Tegan hissed urgently.

"Yes, you're right," he agreed, shaking off his mild foreboding. The important thing was stopping that broadcast. Everything else had to pale in comparison. He took off at a fast trot down the narrow catwalk towards the computer bank, trusting that Nyssa's technical skills had stood up to the challenge. He walked right up to the computer bank without incident and began to analyze the dizzying array of displays and dials.

"I suppose it'd be too much to ask for a simple 'off' switch," Tegan said.

The Doctor shot her a look, turning back to the computer. He spotted the frequency dial and felt a temporary rush of relief. "Good Nyssa!" he exclaimed. Dropping to the floor and ripping off a panel, the Doctor realized that this was going to be trickier than he thought. This wasn't just the transmitter, it was also the controls for all the other systems on the base, including the nuclear reactor that was powering everything, and each system had a separate power cable. He also noticed that there didn't seem to be a shut down mechanism. He would have to disconnect the transmitter's power cable directly.

"Tegan!" He jumped up and grabbed Tegan by the shoulders, positioning her in front of a bank of lights. "I'll have to cut the power cable to the transmitter directly. I need you to stand here and let me know when this light" he pointed out a round green one, "goes out." If he cut the wrong one, he risked everything from shutting down life support to causing the reactor to go critical. If he'd still had his sonic screwdriver, he could have tested each line to find the right one, but without it, he was left to make an educated guess. Under the circumstances, the Doctor saw no value in troubling Tegan with that particular little detail. His hearts thumped loudly in his ears as he studied the bundle of power cords.

Distantly, he heard something on the computer begin to beep.

"Doctor, I think the signal's getting through," Tegan's panicked voice broke his concentration. The Doctor jumped to his feet and checked the dial. Sure enough, the frequency dial had stopped spinning. He was out of time.

"Change of plan!" he announced breathlessly. Diving back into his bundle of wires, the Doctor threw caution to the wind. "Instead, tell me when the green light comes back on!" Grasping the whole bundle in his arms, he yanked hard. The bundle of wires pulled out with relative ease. Landing hard on his backside, the Doctor righted himself and immediately grabbed one of the loose ends and plugged it back in. "Tegan?" he asked.

"No," she answered.

The lights in the cavernous facility flickered and went out, plunging them into deep blackness. The Doctor fumbled for another loose cable and plugged it in, hoping to restore power to the essential systems fast enough to avert a disaster. "Tegan?"

"No."

He plugged in another. The room lights flickered back on.

"No."

The Doctor stuck in a fourth cable and was reaching for a fifth, when Tegan exclaimed, "Yes, that's the one!" Quickly, the Doctor pulled it back out and stuck every other cable back into place. In seconds the computer banks were humming along contentedly, save for the transmitter, which was silent and powerless.

The Doctor sat back, exhaling heavily with relief. He glanced at Tegan, and saw her shoulders relax with the knowledge that crisis had been averted. Just how narrowly, he decided, was something better kept to himself. The Doctor stood up and turned his attention to confirming that all the main systems were working properly.

"That was cutting it a bit close," Tegan commented.

"Yes, well--"

The Doctor's words were promptly drowned out by a blaring klaxon. Shimmering force fields began to explode into place, ringing the platform and systematically cutting off each catwalk.

"To the lift!" the Doctor ordered, giving Tegan a mighty shove onto the catwalk. He timed the turning on of the force fields and spun around, gauging that he had just long enough to complete his destruction of the transmitter.

"Doctor, come on!" Tegan cried from the catwalk.

The Doctor ripped out a large section of wiring and dove towards the catwalk just as the force field snapped into existence all around him. He felt searing heat and light exploded in his eyes. Distantly, he heard Tegan scream.

**o0o**

Tegan stared in helpless horror as the force field blazed around the Doctor's midsection. Against the bright flare, she saw him land on the catwalk in a heap. Tegan ran towards him, blinking the spots out of her eyes, and knelt to help him up, only…he hadn't quite made it.

To be more precise, half of him hadn't made it. Tegan pressed a hand to her mouth and tears sprang to her eyes. The Doctor's head, arms, and most of his torso lay on the diamond plate of the catwalk, while everything from the waist of his trousers to his battered trainers lay behind the force field on the platform. The sickening stench of seared flesh and fabric assaulted Tegan's nostrils.

She couldn't believe it. She refused to believe it. She reached down and rolled the Doctor onto his back. Gruesomely, she registered the fact that the force field must have cauterized the grisly wound, because there was no blood, and no sudden outpouring of entrails when she moved him. That thought alone nearly caused her to wretch. With trembling fingers, she checked his neck for a pulse, but with such unsteady nerves, she couldn't tell whether she was feeling his heartbeat or her own.

"Tegan." The Doctor's blue eyes snapped open. He looked up at her, dazed.

"Doctor…" Tegan croaked, for once at a complete loss for words.

The Doctor lifted his head and stared down at himself. "Oh no," he groaned. Around them, additional force fields began to snap into place, locking off the other ends of the catwalks. "Go, Tegan," he ordered fiercely. "Run to the lift, get back to the TARDIS, hurry."

"But, Doctor, you—"

The Doctor blinked, his eyes beginning to glaze over, "Don't argue, you can't help me. Tell Nyssa…Hit the fast return switch…get out of here."

Tegan stood reluctantly. Her mind was roiling with confusion, with shock. She couldn't think.

"Tegan, for once in your life, just do what I say, and RUN!" the Doctor commanded with the last of his strength.

So Tegan did. She turned and sprinted away from the Doctor.

She skidded on her pumps and stopped just as another force field activated, covering the door to the lift in a glittery blue sheen. She turned around, but the catwalk back to the computer was now blocked with a force field, as well. Fortunately, on her right was another short catwalk that was barred by a comparatively feeble metal chain. Ducking underneath it, she raced to the door at the other end, which opened up into a utility corridor. Tegan rushed into the corridor and the heavy door slid closed behind her.

She staggered a few paces down the corridor before realizing that she didn't know where she was going. She stopped and stood in the quiet, deserted corridor. She had to get to the TARDIS. But where was it?

All at once, she was hit with the impact of what had just happened. Choking on a sob, Tegan sank down to the floor, her back to the wall. She knew this wasn't constructive behavior, but right now, she didn't care. In a minute or two, she'd compose herself and go after the TARDIS. She'd find Nyssa and then, together, they'd figure out what to do. In a minute or two. She pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms.

**o0o**

The Doctor held on long enough to watch Tegan run to safety. Darkness edged into the corners of his vision and he felt his consciousness begin to drift. He felt a tad sorrowful, knowing that with injuries as sudden and grievous as his that regeneration was impossible. There simply wasn't enough of him left intact. He didn't have time to wax philosophical or nostalgic, however. As he rapidly lost consciousness, the Doctor could only hope that the TARDIS would behave itself and do justice to Tegan and Nyssa.

_So, this is what death feels like_, the Doctor thought, as the darkness in his mind gave way to a dazzling flash of brilliance.

**o0o**

Through the small porthole in the door of the utility corridor, there was a peculiar flash of light that had nothing at all to do with the force fields. But with her head buried in her arms, Tegan was not able to see it.


	2. Chapter 2

"Sir?"

The Master didn't turn from the vast computer bank in front of him. "What?" he asked, noting the evident unease of the security guard, as reflected in his computer screen. The Master enjoyed a private smirk. Such timid wastes, these humans.

"The transmitter's been disabled, sir. By the Doctor. Sir," the security guard reported cautiously, clearly expecting some sort of violent reaction from the man in black velvet.

Instead, the Master adjusted a few dials, correcting a mild error in the algorithm flying across the screen in front of him. "Did the force fields activate?"

Appearing confused, the security responded, "They did, sir...after the Doctor disabled the transmitter. His companion fled. I've ordered units to pursue..."

Something about the guard's manner set off alarm bells in the Master's head. He stared at the man's reflection, noting how he shifted his weight constantly and fingered his helmet. "And what of the Doctor?"

The guard opened his mouth, but remained silent for a few heartbeats and composed himself. "The Doctor...was eliminated, sir."

"What?!" the Master spat, whirling to face the guard.

The guard appeared visibly shaken, but stood his ground. "The Doctor was caught in the force field barrier as he tried to escape. He was...cut apart, sir."

"No!" The Master turned back to his computer banks and switched on his security feed to the transmitter room. He zoomed the camera as far as it would go and stared in disbelief. The guard was telling the truth. The Doctor was lying inert on the catwalk, in two neat halves. In any other situation, the Master would have greeted the sight with joy. His eyes scanned the scene, desperate to find where his carefully crafted plan had gone so wrong. Pitching the camera angle up slightly, he saw it. There was a loose cable hanging out of an open panel on the base of the transmitter.

The computer bank chirped indignantly, making the Master realize that, in his rage, he had been mashing a keypad with his fists. He turned off the security feed in disgust (just as the image began to flare), turned and grabbed the guard (who looked as though he'd been preparing himself for it) and shook him angrily. "The fool! He disconnected the neutrino shielding on the force field! He exposed himself to pure hadronic energy! I wanted to catch him, not kill him!" The Master threw the guard aside and landed a heavy fist in the storage locker on the wall beside him. Curse the Doctor and his heroic stupidity!

"We...we're attempting to apprehend the Doctor's companion—"

"She's not important! Retrieve the Doctor's body and take it to the laboratory, immediately! And turn off those useless force fields!" the Master ordered, as the guard picked himself up from the floor. The Master looked at his other monitor, relieved to see that his rant hadn't disturbed the computations swirling across the screen. He saw the guard's reflection, standing stupidly and rubbing the back of his head. "Now!" the Master snapped.

"Yessir!" The guard snapped out a salute and scuttled from the room like a fox that had just stolen a chicken from under the farmer's nose.

The Master made another adjustment to the computer program and prepared to make his way to the lab. "You won't escape me that easily, Doctor...," he vowed.

**o0o**

Light. And a great noise. Cold. Alive. He was alive. Alive was good. He felt his face do something when he thought that. It made him feel good. Smile, that was it. He smiled. Then he realized he had eyes and opened them. Ow! The light was very bright and he closed his eyes again until they got used to it. Opening his eyes again, he found himself looking at a big, strange, blocky thing, covered in a shiny skin and multi-coloured lights. Its innards were exposed, and one long piece hung loose. He didn't know what it was, but figured the fact he was bent double and lying on the floor probably wasn't helping. So he sat up, happy to find that his muscles seemed to know what to do. He looked down at himself. His legs were coated in some kind of loose skin that felt lifeless and was covered in red and white stripes. He wiggled his toes against the confines of their heavier, loose skin...no, not skin, shoes. The things on his feet were called shoes. And the things covering his legs were called...? He scratched his head in puzzlement.

Hair! He had hair! Quite a bit of it, he judged, tugging at the shaggy locks on his scalp. Hair was good. Shoes were good, too. And the striped things on his legs—whatever they were called--were good, too. He smiled again. He returned his attention back to the big thing with the lights on it, but even looking at it from the right angle didn't help him know what it was. He looked up, and saw that the top of the thing went clear up to the convex ceiling. It was a long way up, and he felt himself go slightly slack-jawed in awe. The vast expanse over him stirred a different feeling in him, one that was not exactly pleasant, but exhilarating. He decided he didn't like staring up at the vast ceiling that was making him feel strange, and stood up.

He was standing on a round platform, and he could see over the railing that the real floor was just as far down as the ceiling was high, and that made him feel strange, too. Keeping close to the big thing in the centre of the platform that had its innards hanging out, he saw pathways spanning the air and joining each side of the platform to the distant wall. And at the other end of the pathways were doors. Doors led to other places, he recalled suddenly. And other places would have other things to look at. The thought fascinated him. At least, other places might not have such high ceilings and low floors as this place did. They might not be as cold, either, he figured, shivering suddenly. He crossed his bare arms over his bare chest, and jogged straight across the platform, onto the suspended pathway, and didn't stop until he was at the door at the other end. He was just trying to think of how to get the door to let him past when it opened on its own. He was bathed in a stream of warmer air from the empty corridor on the other side. The floor and ceiling were much closer together here, and the sides were closed in, too. He didn't feel at all strange here. Happy with his choice, he smiled and strolled through the doorway into the corridor.

**o0o**

Slowly, the Doctor realized that he wasn't dead. In the back of his mind, he registered the loud snap of dozens of force fields shutting down, and the vague vibrations of footsteps on the diamond plate platform, but by the time he understood what he'd heard, all was still and quiet, save for the gentle rumble of air ventilation and the steady pulsing of power through machinery.

Machinery. The transmitter!

The Doctor jolted awake, found himself staring up at the distant ceiling, and remembered that he'd been successful in disabling the signal. In escaping the force field, however, he must have been less than triumphant. He drew a deep breath and rested a hand on his stomach. His little finger touched nothing but air. The Doctor propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at himself.

"Oh," he groaned in dismay as his memory came rushing back. That's right. He'd been caught in the force field at a point just above his navel. He'd been cut in half, which was why he'd fully expected to...

Hang on...

"Why am I not dead?" the Doctor asked himself out loud. He wasn't in any pain, either. "And where are my legs?" he demanded, suddenly noticing that his lower half was nowhere to be seen on the platform. For a terrible second, he entertained the notion that maybe his legs had rolled off the platform, but seeing as they had been intact and connected to his pelvis, that seemed unlikely. Remembering the footsteps he'd heard in his semiconscious state, another bizarre prospect occurred to him. If he wasn't dead, maybe his legs had stayed animated, as well.

And were walking around all by themselves? Really, Doctor, he admonished himself immediately, that would be ridiculous. But then, he wasn't exactly obeying nature at the moment, was he? He should be dead. Mustering up the appropriate courage, the Doctor reached towards his stomach again, and grimacing, checked his wound. To his complete and utter surprise, he detected smooth, completely normal flesh. Before he could consider the situation further, he heard a door open and the clatter of footsteps on the catwalk. He looked up and saw two guards running towards him (along a different catwalk than the one Tegan had taken, fortunately).

As the two guards stepped onto the platform and looked at the Doctor, they pulled up short and froze, their faces registering deep disbelief. "Holy Saint Lalla!" the foremost guard spluttered, staring at the Doctor.

The Doctor could only think to respond with, "I don't suppose you've seen my legs running about anywhere, have you? Would have been two of them, in red, striped trousers and white trainers?"

The guards stayed frozen for a beat, then they both let loose with horrified screams, turned, and went scrambling back the way they'd come.

The Doctor watched their retreat with some bewilderment. "Well, at least they didn't overreact," he grumbled. Alone again, the Doctor realized that whatever had just happened to him, he wasn't going to figure anything out laying on the platform like this. And there was still the matter of finding the Master, assuming he hadn't already escaped. The thing to do, the Doctor decided, was to get to the TARDIS where Nyssa could run some proper diagnostics. The Doctor rolled onto his chest, reached out, and began to drag himself down the catwalk he'd last seen Tegan on. If he could get back to the lift, he could find the TARDIS. He quickly concluded, however, that getting to the lift was going to take a lot longer than expected, pulling himself along by the arms. He stopped long enough to take off his coat, which had been cut in half, too. "'Don't brag about your lightning pace,'" he reminded himself doggedly, resuming his drag, "'for Slow and Steady won the race.'"


	3. Chapter 3

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" the Master demanded, resisting the urge to reach out and strangle the two shamefaced guards that had greeted him in the empty laboratory.

The guards shared terrified expressions. "We went to the transmitter room, as ordered, but he--the Doctor--wasn't there. His body was gone, sir," the guard on the left explained again. His comrade nodded in agreement.

"That's impossible. You're lying to me," the Master decided, narrowing his eyes at the guards and taking a claustrophobic step towards them.

The two guards shrank back slightly and the left guard swallowed nervously. "N-no sir. I swear, he wasn't there. We scoured that room, didn't we?" the left guard insisted, turning to his comrade. His comrade again nodded vigorously. "He-he must not have been dead, after all, sir."

"Of course he was dead! No one gets cut in half by hadronic energy and then walks away, you idiot! Not even a Time Lord!" the Master shouted in his face. He turned away from them, thinking. They were lying. That was the only explanation. Or was it? He'd handpicked his guards and brainwashed them thoroughly. They shouldn't be capable of deceit. And there was an equally slim chance that the Doctor would have been able to regenerate after his little accident.

The Master went over to the laboratory's computer lab and tuned in the security feed from the transmitter room. He angled and zoomed the image onto the platform. Sure enough, it was deserted.

No, not completely.

He zoomed in tighter on an object lying on one of the catwalks and recognized it immediately. The Doctor's coat. Of course. He should have realized it immediately. He switched off the monitor with a violent slap of his hand and pounded the top of the computer with a frustrated fist. "The girls!" he growled.

"Sir?" the left guard queried weakly.

"The Doctor's impish swains must have taken his body back to his TARDIS!"

"Tardis, sir?"

"An absurdly tall blue box that he no doubt stashed somewhere on base. Mobilize your men and instigate a full search for it at once, arrest whoever you find inside and bring them directly to me!"

The Master loathed using underlings. Unfortunately, he'd had very little choice in the matter. He couldn't build this facility on his own, and the only way he could get the planet's colonial government to agree to its construction was by keeping a native staff of security and technical support. It was more than a nuisance, but the Master had to admit that part of him enjoyed having a captive population fearing him and rushing to pacify his every whim, even if it was on such a small scale as this. But he was willing to tolerate the inconvenience of it all, because once he had the Doctor's brain at his disposal, then nothing would stand between him and universal domination.

The guards leapt to attention. "Yes, sir."

"And, Captain," the Master said, breathing down into the left guard's face, "Don't disappoint me again, either of you," the Master added, turning his penetrating stare on the other guard, who was visibly trembling, "or you'll find out exactly how lethal hadronic energy is. Understood?" the Master asked coolly, basking in the pale horror that spread across the guards' stoic faces.

"Yes, sir. Perfectly," the captain choked out.

The Master grinned. It was almost disgusting how easily these people were intimidated. At least, they were always good for an occasional power trip. "Dismissed," he said, stepping back and flicking his wrist towards the door. He chuckled quietly as the two raced each other out of the lab.

**o0o**

"That could've been much worse," the captain muttered once he and his comrade were a safe distance down the corridor from the lab. He glanced over at his tight-lipped associate. "Eh? Didn't I say he'd believe us? Sergeant?"

"I don't think I can take much more of this, sir," the sergeant muttered back, staring straight ahead, his expression fiercely impassive. "That's the second time today he's threatened me. It's only a matter of time 'til he finds us out, sir."

"If we'd gone in there and told him the truth, that we panicked and left the Doctor behind, he'd have killed us on the spot and you know it. The key is to hold your ground and stick to your story. And you will, won't you, Sergeant?" the captain snapped.

"...Yes, sir."

The pair walked on in stony silence for a moment.

"Though," the captain added, "I will admit that when he turned on the security feed, my life flashed in front of my eyes."

The sergeant glanced at him warily. "Where could the Doctor have gone?"

The captain shrugged. "Could be the Master's right, and the Doctor's companions came back for him. In which case, when we capture the buggars, we owe them a heartfelt thanks for saving our asses."

**o0o**

The Doctor was well versed in profanity, and had an extensive vocabulary spanning several thousand languages. However, none of them could do justice to his feelings when, once he finally succeeded in dragging what remained of his body to the lift doors, they stubbornly refused to open. If there was a motion sensor, it wasn't working, and he saw no buttons or ID sensors anywhere on the wall. "Who designed this place?" he groused.

He tried pounding on the doors with one arm, but his burning muscles weren't up to any convincing displays of force.

Heaving a tired sigh, the Doctor took a moment to rest, drumming his fingers on the metal floor. Then, laboriously, he turned himself over and took stock of his situation. Then he noticed the short catwalk, blocked by the chain. It led to another door. His arms ached at just the thought of dragging himself the distance, but it was far shorter a trip than going all the way back to the platform and taking one of the other radial catwalks.

Groaning, he rolled back onto his chest and started pulling himself towards the short catwalk. "How low can you go?" he grumbled sarcastically as he crawled beneath the chain.

The going was agonizingly slow, but he eventually arrived at the door, and mercifully, this one slid open for him. "Thank you," he sighed, pulling himself across the threshold. Gazing up the small corridor, the Doctor couldn't believe his eyes. Huddled against the wall, knees pulled up tightly and her face concealed, was Tegan. He heard a quiet sob echo towards him. Bless Tegan and her emotionalism! It was the happiest sight he could have ever hoped to see.

"Tegan!" he called to her, his voice heavy with relief.

She lifted her head, but didn't look his way.

"Over here."

She turned, and her eyes went wide. "Doctor?"

"In the flesh." To himself, he added, "Mostly."

Tegan gaped at him, slowly stood up and walked towards him. "I thought you were dead! How--Aaah!" Tegan leaped back in revulsion as she drew near enough to see the Doctor's condition.

"Now, just stay--"

"Your legs are off!" she spluttered.

"Thank you, Tegan, I HAD noticed," the Doctor snipped. He really didn't have time for anyone's hysterics, least of all Tegan's.

"Wuh-? How-? She looked past him, out the porthole. "Your legs-?"

"Missing, actually."

Tegan went to her knees, still staring at him in abject disbelief. "You should be dead!" Then, she looked confused. "Shouldn't you? You haven't regenerated?"

"It's, er, complicated. I need you to take me to the TARDIS."

"I don't know how to get there from here!" Tegan protested.

Understanding that she was still in shock, the Doctor ignored her outburst. "I can get us to the TARDIS, but I need your legs."

Tegan looked startled. "My what?"

The Doctor didn't understand why Tegan was making him feel so embarrassed about all this. Resting his forehead on his hands, he made himself say it. "I need you to carry me."

Tegan blinked. "Oh." Then she started to smirk. "Yeah, I guess you would. Okay. Front or back?"

The Doctor stared at Tegan, then realized what she meant. Giving her a purely analytical once-over, he concluded, "Back."

"Okay." Tegan sat down, her back to him, and the Doctor pulled himself up against her, wrapping his arms around her collarbone. "Ready?" she asked.

"Yes," the Doctor answered, mindful that her ear was now right beside his face. Holding onto his forearms, Tegan stood up and shrugged a little to situate the Doctor's abbreviated body into a comfortable position on her back. With so little of himself to support, the Doctor was pleasantly surprised to find that, as long as Tegan leaned slightly forward, he could hold himself quite easily.

"Didn't realize you were such a lightweight, Doctor," Tegan remarked.

"If I didn't know you better, I'd think you were starting to enjoy this," the Doctor responded acidly.

"How dare you!"


	4. Chapter 4

Nyssa pulled the TARDIS door closed behind her and looked both ways. The TARDIS had landed in a corridor that was evidently still being constructed, and the place was strewn with stepladders and other equipment. It was strung with tarps that plugged open sections of the ceiling, and blocked both ends of the corridor from the rest of the base. Safe enough from prying eyes. Still, Nyssa proceeded with caution.

The Doctor had stopped the signal, but he and Tegan had not yet returned, and Nyssa was feeling fairly certain that they should have been back by now. She hated not knowing for certain, but the pit of dread in her stomach told Nyssa that it was likely the Doctor and Tegan were in trouble. So here she was, against her better judgement, leaving the safety of the time ship to go find them. She'd been able to hack into the base's systems far enough to get a blueprint, and so far her plan consisted of retracing the Doctor's footsteps and going to the transmitter room.

Nyssa silently approached the hanging tarp at the end of the corridor. Suddenly, she heard the clatter of footsteps and jumped back, pressing herself against the wall as the silhouettes of two guards passed in front of the tarp.

"Blue box? I tell you, I think the captain's really gone off it this time," one said.

The other laughed.

Nyssa waited until their voices and footsteps had faded to nothing before ungluing herself from the wall. So they were looking for the TARDIS.

That was something, at least, though not very conclusive. The Master could have captured the Doctor and Tegan and was simply unable to glean any information from them, or it could mean that he had only realized that the Doctor was involved and hadn't found anyone, yet. Either way, it meant that Nyssa was going to have to be very careful. She found a slender piece of metallic piping lying on the ground and picked it up. Walking up to the tarp, she found an opening and peeked through. The finished corridor beyond seemed deserted. She stepped through the tarp, looked both ways and turned right.

**o0o**

He liked walking. It seemed to be something his legs did really well. Since he'd started walking, he'd been up and down lots of corridors and seen many rooms full of different kinds of objects. Some of the objects reminded him of the big one he'd found in the huge room: covered in lights and with bits poking out here and there. One of them was so shiny that he was able to see himself in it. Of course, it had taken him a moment or two to realize that the shaggy blond-haired, blue eyed, thin person that had appeared in it was actually him.

Once he figured that out, he had a good chuckle about it.

Other rooms had stacks and stacks of identical cubes in them, which hadn't interested him much at first, until he'd realized that the cubes opened and had lots of other objects hidden inside, like clothes, metal parts and pieces, and things like the one he now held in his hand. It was like a smaller version of the big cube he'd found it in, only longer and flatter in one direction, and it rattled when he shook it. The idea that one object contained another object that contained yet ANOTHER object nearly blew him away, and he had decided to go for another walk in order to clear his head. But he liked the smaller cubes so much that he decided to take one with him.

He shook the cube again, and smiled at the racket it made. It sounded like it had more than one object inside it. What if, he mused, each of the objects inside this smaller cube ALSO had things inside them? And what if it just kept on going like that, with objects inside ever-smaller objects, in an unceasing cycle? He stopped and gave his head a good shake. He was making himself dizzy with thoughts like this, but thinking them felt good.

He let his legs do the walking, turning corners without thinking about it; it was as if his body knew where it was going all by itself. But he didn't mind that, as it gave him the chance to toy with the rattling cube more. He couldn't figure out how to get inside it to find out what it contained. He tried prying at the edges, but that didn't work. He turned another corner automatically, whilst he lifted the cube to his mouth. Maybe he could bite it open...

"Doctor!"

He skidded to a stop. There was a person standing in front of him. And this one definitely wasn't him. This one was shorter, a woman, with very full rivulets of brown hair and a decidedly curvier shape, clothed in soft maroon, and holding a long piece of metal. He looked at her for a long moment, instantly deciding that he liked what he saw. Liked her even better than his rattling cube, in fact. He smiled at her.

"Doctor?" she said again, appearing puzzled, "What happened? Where's Tegan?"

Much to his surprise, the musical sounds coming from her mouth actually made some sense. Of course! Talking! He knew how to do that! "Hello," he said. From her expression, he wondered if he'd said the wrong thing.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"I feel...good. Yes. I feel good. How are you?" He felt he was getting the hang of this talking thing.

**o0o**

Nyssa was concerned. How was she? What kind of question was that? Was he in shock? She looked at him closely, and suddenly became extremely aware of the fact that he was currently bare-chested. And surprisingly slender. His layers of shirts and his coat obviously gave him a slightly heftier appearance than he actually had. Fortunately, she reminded herself sternly, he didn't appear to be physically injured. "But, what's happened to you? To your jumper and your coat?" she asked.

He looked down at himself. "Er, I lost them?"

"You don't know?"

He blinked at her innocently. "Should I?"

"What about Tegan?"

"What's a Tegan?"

Nyssa was getting downright unnerved. "Doctor, if this is some sort of silly joke—!"

"Is it? Have I just been funny?" He looked at her with child-like eagerness.

No, Nyssa decided, this was certainly no joke. Something was very wrong with the Doctor. She suspected neurological trauma of some kind, but would need the TARDIS' medical scanner to be sure. At the very least, they shouldn't be having an involved discussion in the middle of a hostile base like this. "I think you'd better come to the TARDIS with me, Doctor."

He smiled brightly. "I think I'd like that very much."

**o0o**

He followed the maroon woman down the maze of corridors and past numerous doors that probably contained lots of other things, but he didn't even care about that, anymore. The maroon woman was far more interesting to him than anything he'd seen before. He mimicked her soft, gentle way of moving, but he wasn't terribly good at it. Even the way her hair bounced on her shoulders had a mysterious beauty to it. He didn't know what it was about her that made him feel so good, or why he liked watching her so much, but he was enjoying trying to puzzle it out.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She stopped and turned to stare at him. "Who am I? I'm Nyssa, Doctor." Her large, luminous eyes flicked over his face, radiating concern. She reached out and touched his arm. "Nyssa of Traken. Your friend." She pulled her gracefully sculpted brows together. "You really don't remember me, do you?"

Her skin felt hot and soft against his arm. He took her fingers in his. He had a strange sensation in his stomach when he touched her, similar to the feeling he had in the big room with the high ceiling, only this time he liked the feeling a lot. "Nyssa," he said, trying it out. It suited her perfectly. "How could I forget someone like you?" he asked.

She looked unconvinced, and politely took her hand back. "The TARDIS is just round here," she said gently. Clearing her throat, she turned and started walking again.

He trailed her to a hanging piece of plastic and waited as she pulled it aside, gesturing for him to follow her through. On the other side of the plastic was an environment almost more fascinating than Nyssa was. Plastic hung from places in the ceiling, parts of the walls were plain, while other parts were tiled like normal, and all kinds of gadgetry sat around on the floor. But when he watched Nyssa step carefully around the debris, he forgot about the corridor. Her movements made sense in a way he couldn't explain.

She stopped at a tall, dark blue cube. It had a door on it, and she pushed it open and waited for him to go in, first. He walked up to the blue box—up to her—and was greatly surprised that the peculiar feeling got stronger as he got closer to her.

"In here," she said.

He watched her speak, and when she finished, for no tangible reason that he could think of, he stood opposite her in the doorway of the dark blue cube, leaned down and kissed her lips. It was the most incredible feeling he'd felt, yet.

**o0o**

Nyssa was too stunned to react at first. The Doctor had never once shown the slightest romantic interest in her before. Or, indeed, with anyone, as far as she knew. He was behaving completely inappropriately, and she should put a stop to it at once. So why was she standing here, allowing him to put his arms around her and pull her deeper into the kiss?

"You two! Hands up!"

The guard's rough command succeeded where Nyssa's resolve failed, and she pushed the Doctor off of her. Three of the Master's armed guards were charging down the hallway towards them.

"More friends?" the Doctor asked innocently.

"No!" Nyssa hurried him into the TARDIS and shut the doors. She heard the faint drum of laser bolts striking the exterior of the TARDIS. She exhaled in relief. That was much too close. She should have heard their approach much earlier, if it hadn't been for the Doctor's distracting—and, she had to admit, somewhat disarming—behaviour.

The Doctor stood dumbstruck in the console room. He turned in place, open-mouthed. Nyssa couldn't help finding it endearing. She loved how expressive his face was. "This is the TARDIS, Doctor. Your home. Do you remember it?"

He knit his brows together quizzically. "You keep calling me 'Doctor.'"

Nyssa tried hard to keep her dismay from showing. The Master must have got to him. That was the only explanation. So what did that portend for Tegan? Nyssa activated the view screen and counted. There were now six guards outside, and two of them were trying to ram open the TARDIS doors with their shoulders. Another was speaking into a communications device, no doubt reporting the situation to the Master. "So I suppose you've also forgotten how to pilot the TARDIS?"

He grinned and shrugged. "Probably."

Nyssa wanted to get frustrated, but watching that cheerful grin spread into his sparkling blue eyes, she couldn't. "Well, this is one fine mess we're in," she sighed. The Doctor joined her at the console. Nyssa tried to ignore his close, half-clothed presence and tried to set up the TARDIS scanner to locate Tegan.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked, shifting closer to watch over her shoulder.

His deep, vaguely rusty tones, so close to her ear, made Nyssa shiver involuntarily. "I'm trying to find Tegan, but all of the Master's guards are also human, and the scanner can't tell one from the other, unfortunately." She looked back at the view screen, desperate for a distraction. "If only I knew how to pilot the TARDIS, we could get away from here." The Doctor placed comforting hands on her shoulders, keeping her from straying too far. "We're trapped," she concluded dismally. Despite her better judgement, she was glad of his understanding touch.

"It could be worse," he said, stroking her shoulders affectionately.

A little part of Nyssa had always quietly hoped that the Doctor would have these kinds of feelings for her. There had been moments, after Tegan had gone back to Heathrow, when Nyssa thought the Doctor had been on the verge of such a display, but nothing had ever come of it. The expectation had started to get unbearable by the time Tegan returned, and with the Australian once more stirring things up in their midst, Nyssa had once again buried her feelings under layers of Trakenite formality and restraint.

Restraint that wouldn't be undone so easily by a gentle touch.

Nyssa pulled away from him and turned, placing her hands on his arms to discourage any more of this. "Doctor, we can't do this. There is something wrong with you, and I need to examine you in the medical bay to find out what it is."

"What are you talking about? I feel fine." He smiled that smile again. That sweet, slightly playful, melts-butter-on-sight smile. "Better than fine."

He grasped her elbows gently and drew her in for another slow-burning kiss.

Nyssa couldn't help herself. She wanted him, fiercely. Even though every logical fibre in her body told her it was wrong, when he kissed her, she kissed back. Eagerly. Her logical fibres were sadly outnumbered at the moment. "But what about Tegan? She could be in danger," she gasped when her mouth was her own again.

His hands circled her waist and pulled her against the cool flesh of his bare stomach. "If we go out there, we'll be in danger, as well."

Of all the times for him to start being sensible! Nyssa rallied a final protest, over the wordless demands of her body. "There's no time. We have to find her." Her voice trembled, doing nothing to bolster her weak argument.

The Doctor brushed the back of his hand along her jaw in a gentle caress. "But you just said we were trapped?"

Nyssa looked into his bright, baleful blue eyes; so confident, so sweet, so hungry, and lost her train of thought entirely.

"Besides," he added, leaning down to kiss her heated lips again, "I thought you wanted to examine me, first?"


	5. Chapter 5

The captain shook his head in amazement as his men exhausted the power supply of a second laser saw on the so-far impervious skin of the TARDIS. When battering the doors failed to produce results, one of his men had attempted to pick the lock, and was now in the sick bay after the blue box unexpectedly electrocuted him. They'd taken hammers and other blunt objects to the windows and rickety wooden exterior, but hadn't left so much as a dent.

"This one's had it, sir," the sergeant commented, dropping the spent saw in disgust. He rubbed at the paint job. "But I think we may have scratched it this time. Wait, no, that was already there. Never mind, sir."

The captain was growing more than a little agitated. The Master would want an update on the search soon, and the captain really didn't want to admit that he and his men were stymied by a wooden crate! Of course, he'd already witnessed one impossibility today; when he saw the Doctor—completely whole—take refuge inside the TARDIS just as he and his men opened fire. It shouldn't have surprised him to find that the Doctor's box was also possessed of some unusual qualities.

"Obviously, we need something more powerful to crack this nut," the captain agreed. "Corporal," he said, watching the fresh-faced young woman snap to attention, "Take a private with you and get us a moon-buster from the armoury."

She raised her eyebrows. "Yes, sir."

The sergeant shook his head.

"You disagree, sergeant?"

"Sir? Well...permission to state the obvious, sir?" the sergeant responded with a hint of irritation.

The captain had a good idea of what was coming, but nodded anyway.

"This thing isn't normal, sir. Laser saws can cut through anything, sir, and they didn't even hurt the paint on this thing. The moon-buster probably won't, either, sir."

The captain held out his radio. "You want to get on the comm. and tell that to the Master?"

The sergeant blanched a little. He glanced behind him to the other two guards in the unit, and they both took a step back. The sergeant swallowed self-consciously. "Well, sir, maybe we ought to try the moon-buster just in case."

"Good idea, sergeant," the captain agreed flatly, snapping his radio back into its belt clip. He saw the three guards all visibly relax. He produced his gun and armed it with a confident snap of his wrist. "You're still on alert!" he snapped. The three quickly pulled up their weapons and took up flanking positions around the TARDIS. "After all, look at the size of that thing. He can't stay in there indefinitely."

"Yeah, maybe he'll invite us in for tea," the sergeant quipped under his breath.

**o0o**

"Could you stop that?!"

"What am I doing, now?"

"You're breathing in my ear!"

"Honestly, Tegan!"

"Well, it tickles!"

"Then where would you like me to breathe?"

"Just not in my ear, or down my neck."

"I wasn't!"

Tegan stopped and carefully dropped to her knees. "I need a break." The Doctor grudgingly let go and sank to the floor of the empty corridor. Truthfully, his arms could use a short reprieve. Tegan rolled her shoulders and sat back against the wall beside him, rubbing her neck. "Anyway, you were, too. And considering how you were eyeing me up back there, I suppose I should be grateful you haven't drooled on me."

The Doctor propped himself up with a start. "The way I WHAT?"

"When I agreed to carry you in the first place. I saw you giving me the once-over. Don't try to deny it."

"What?" The Doctor found himself stunned wordless by the accusation.

Tegan finally turned her haughty eyes on him, and promptly began snickering at him. "You really are too easy, Doctor!"

Ah, she was kidding. For some reason, that realization made the Doctor feel guilty, as though he'd been caught in a lie. "That's not funny, Tegan," he groused.

"Oh, stop it! I'm not being serious."

But her flip tone when she said it bothered him immensely. "Of course. Even if—well, I wouldn't be that boorish about it," he added, deliberately not looking at her.

Tegan chuckled. "I'm well aware of _that_."

"I beg your pardon?"

Tegan looked at him innocently. "What? I'm agreeing with you."

The Doctor was the first to admit that he wasn't the best at interpreting human subtlety, but the undercurrents in Tegan's voice were pricklingly obvious, and they touched a nerve. "No, you're insinuating."

"So what if I am? It's nothing that you haven't made plain already."

Did she mean that as a defence, or as a complaint? The Doctor hesitated. "How do you mean?"

"Nothing," Tegan's shoulders convulsed in silent mirth, "Casanova."

The Doctor had that uneasy, caught-red-handed feeling again. Tegan got under his skin, true. She challenged his patience and his authority, and the truth was that he had been somewhat glad to be rid of her pessimistic presence. Since her return, however, he'd developed a certain respect and, yes, some affection for her brash, argumentative ways. He felt the same about all his friends. That was no reason to be embarrassed, was it? Surely, Tegan wasn't that different?

"Can we go to the TARDIS now, or are you not through insulting me, yet?" he asked coolly.

Tegan rolled her eyes and sat up. "My shoulders are still a bit tired, but alright. Up you go, Doctor. Or should I shorten it to 'Doc,' so it fits you better?"

"Hasn't your mouth got tired, yet?" he grumbled, wrapping his arms around her neck once again.

Tegan stood up. "Oh, come on, Doctor! If I really wanted to be mean, I'd have said something like, 'Pull yourself together,' or 'you're half the man you used to be'—"

"Point taken," the Doctor snapped quickly. "Turn left at this next junction."

"Fine! Goodness, Doc, no need to get your knickers in a twist!"


	6. Chapter 6

Nyssa couldn't believe what had just happened. She stared at the Doctor's face, so relaxed and innocent as he slumbered next to her, and felt a wave of guilt chase away her languid comfort. How long had it been since she'd brought the Doctor back to the TARDIS? How much time had she frittered away, satisfying her own selfish needs when Tegan was alone somewhere in the hostile base? And what would the Doctor think of all this, once he was back in his right mind?

At least, Nyssa thought sardonically, she could be quite positive that he was physically fine. Although she was a bit surprised at how quickly he'd fallen asleep afterwards, like a young child who had exhausted himself at play and needed a nap. Nyssa couldn't recall the last time she'd seen the Doctor sleep, and lying as he was, his mouth open slightly, his floppy blond hair mussed against the pillow and his soft features unmarred by worry or consternation, there was something very childlike about him. Even his skin tone and colour seemed younger and fresher somehow. Still, she was glad he was asleep. She felt awkward enough about things as they were.

Nyssa carefully rolled away from the Doctor and sat up, careful not to disturb him, and quickly found a clean set of clothes. Her originals were a crumpled mess on the floor. Nyssa bent to retrieve them, and had to shake out the Doctor's striped trousers, which had somehow become tangled in with her clothes. She then noticed that the Doctor's question-marked braces appeared to have been cut off. Nyssa paused to examine them a little more closely. Strangely, the straps were sliced both in front and in back. What kind of trouble had he got himself into, anyway?

"Hello, again," the Doctor said.

Nyssa startled badly and dropped his trousers. "You're awake!"

The Doctor smiled brightly, stretched, and sat up, yawning for effect. "So that's what sleep feels like! Yes, I suppose I was. You've put your clothes back on, Nyssa."

Nyssa picked up his trousers again and folded them, doing her best to ignore his innocent display of muscle flexing. She meant business this time. "Yes, and now I'm going back to the console room. If the guards have gone, we can start looking for Tegan."

"That won't be as fun, will it?" the Doctor asked, practically pouting.

Nyssa could feel herself beginning to blush, and didn't look at him. "There are more important things than fun, Doctor." She placed his folded trousers on the edge of her bed and started to leave.

The Doctor pulled back the sheet and got up. "I'll come with you, though. You can make anything more fun just by being there, I would think."

Nyssa turned away, blushing in earnest. "Put your trousers on, first!"

"Must I? It feels rather nice not wearing anything. Though not nearly as nice as it felt when we—"

"Please, Doctor! Do it for me?" Nyssa cut him off quickly, her cheeks positively burning with embarrassment.

"Alright."

Nyssa had the viewer on and was feeling her stomach turn to stone as the Doctor strolled into the console room, tugging on the waist of his trousers. He hadn't bothered to put his socks or shoes back on. "The guards are still there," he observed.

"They most certainly are," Nyssa agreed, watching them assemble a sizeable device of some kind in the corridor. One of the guards lifted a large, cylindrical component out of a box. It looked suspiciously reminiscent of a large, nasty gun barrel.

"What are they doing?" the Doctor asked, walking up to the viewer and watching with unblinking fascination. He lifted a hand to touch the screen, following the movement of the component from the box to the assembled device.

"I think they're building a gun of some kind."

"Gun?" He turned to blink inquisitively at Nyssa.

"A machine used to kill people and damage things. They must be intending to blast open the TARDIS with it."

"Can they do that?" the Doctor asked, looking around the console room in alarm.

Nyssa hoped not, but it was the Doctor's sincere ignorance that frightened her more. "The TARDIS is quite durable, Doctor." But not indestructible, she knew.

She turned to look at the TARDIS controls. How many times had she watched him fly it from these very panels? How often had she assisted the Doctor in repairing faulty circuits and running diagnostics? Surely it couldn't be that difficult to suss out the particulars of flying the time machine?

She looked back at the screen. The guards had finished their weapon assembly and appeared to be putting the finishing touches on some wiring. Her heart began to pound.

"All the same," she added turning back to the console, "We'd be better off moving the TARDIS away from here."

The Doctor walked around her to stare at the controls, too. "It moves? How?"

His astounded tone did not inspire confidence. Nyssa looked up at him, searching his eyes. "You should know, Doctor. Think." He stared back at her blankly.

Nyssa took his arm and guided him around the console. "These are the vector controls, remember? The geospatial hyper-link is here, and this is the interstitial temporal phase locator. This one is the chronowave generator, and, I believe that blue line of buttons over there is the artron flow valve. You must recognise some of them. Get us out of here."

Nyssa let go of his arm and watched the Doctor circle the panels slowly, eyeing the arrangements of buttons and levers with a look of deep concentration on his face. Nyssa was getting more than a little anxious, but was afraid to push him. It was a long shot, but Nyssa knew that though his declarative memory was damaged, it was possible that his procedural memory might still be intact and allow him to operate the controls correctly, even though he couldn't explicitly remember what they were or recall having ever done it.

He paused and looked at Nyssa confusedly. "I don't know."

"Just do what feels right," she directed, recognizing the risk she was taking. "Look at the controls, and follow your instinct, Doctor."

He went back to studying the controls. When he'd arrived at the far side of the console, he stopped, reached out, and flicked the big, red, door mechanism with one finger. The TARDIS doors obediently swung open.

"Doctor! No!" Nyssa dashed over to put it back, as a guard rushed into the console room, followed by another. Both guards skidded to a stop and stared around the spacious console room.

Nyssa took advantage of their momentary stupor to reach for the door lever, but her movement appeared to snap the first guard back to the present.

He swiftly pulled his gun on Nyssa. "Step away from the controls, and don't move!" he ordered gruffly. "Sergeant!" he snapped.

The second guard jumped, and aimed his blaster at the Doctor, who smiled in fascination at the energy weapon in his face.

"Hands where I can see them," the first guard ordered her.

Dismayed, Nyssa obeyed, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"You too, Smiley," the second guard said to the Doctor.

The Doctor followed Nyssa's lead and lifted his hands, cocking his head quizzically. "Smiley? I thought my name was 'Doctor'?"

**o0o**

Tegan tapped her foot impatiently. "Well?"

"I'm thinking."

Tegan felt as though she'd been wandering this base for hours, hauling the Doctor like a living rucksack, and not getting anywhere. She almost suspected that the Doctor was navigating randomly, and she really didn't like being a packhorse. "I thought you said you knew the way back to the TARDIS?"

"Yes," the Doctor mumbled thoughtfully, obviously ignoring her. "Left here."

She balked. "Are you sure?"

"Tegan..."

"Just checking." She turned down another unfamiliar corridor and walked to the next intersection. She stopped and waited for new instructions, sighing. The Doctor was conspicuously quiet. "You don't know, do you?" she accused sharply.

"One moment! Surprisingly, I'm having some difficulty concentrating. I'm sure it's nothing to do with your constant whinging, however," he snapped back harshly.

Tegan detected strain in his voice and immediately backed down. "Sorry, Doctor. I'm just tired and freaked out. I didn't mean to take it out on you."

The Doctor sighed and sagged against her back. "I know." Tegan felt his chin rest against her shoulder. "It seems I'm a little more out of sorts than I realised, I'm sorry."

Tegan looked both ways, and spotted a computer interface in the wall. "I understand."

"What, that I've lost half a body, so half my wits as well?"

Tegan smirked and headed for the computer terminal. "You said it, Doc, not me."

"Where are you taking me?"

"To ask directions," Tegan announced, stopping in front of the interface. "I reckon this system ought to have a map, or a blueprint or something, right?"

Tegan saw their reflection in the computer screen, and the Doctor immediately perked up, putting his thoughtful face on. "It just might. Why didn't I think of that?"

"Because you're male," Tegan answered off-handedly, prudently keeping silent about any qualifiers she could have added to that statement, given the circumstances.

The Doctor made a face, but prudently kept silent about any rejoinders he could have answered with, and instead went with, "Access the mainframe, would you?"

Tegan stared at the screen and unmarked keypad with minor trepidation. She'd never been hugely competent with computers. "Erm..." She glanced askance at the Doctor, was watching keenly over her shoulder.

He looked back at her. "Right, better if I do it. Hold me up."

_Yeah_, mused Tegan moments later, _this couldn't get much more awkward_. The Doctor was tapping away at the keys, his back against Tegan's chest as she held him tightly across his stomach. She could have held him more easily by putting a hand underneath him for support, but the notion made her slightly squeamish. He continued to work in silence, so Tegan looked both ways to make sure no one was coming. It suddenly struck her how tremendously odd they must appear right now. She tried to look over his shoulder to see what he was doing, but without getting a mouthful of blond hair in the process.

"Your hair is longer than mine," she quipped.

"Hm?"

Tegan knew that distracted tone. "Nothing." Vaguely, though, she wondered what shampoo he used. The scent was foreign to her nostrils, but nice all the same. Unconsciously, Tegan rested her chin against his shoulder, letting the scent of his hair mingle with that of his white jumper. It was spicy and fragrant, and Tegan quite liked it. It was a thrilling, exotic aroma that made her think of alien marketplaces, ancient palaces and space stations hanging in the great void of space, overlooking dusty nebulae and cloud-shrouded worlds no human eyes had ever seen before. At the same time, it was also a comforting scent, like coming back to a childhood home after many years away.

"Tegan?" The Doctor's voice drifted distantly.

"Hmm?"

"Are you _sniffing_ me?"

Tegan opened her eyes and pulled her face away from his shoulder, appalled at herself. "What? No!"

The Doctor eyed her a bit suspiciously, amusement playing around his eyes. "Oh, sorry. My mistake."

"You bet it is," Tegan agreed vehemently.

The Doctor turned back to the computer, flicking his eyebrows.

Tegan was just as creeped out. Sniffing the Doctor? Get a grip!


	7. Chapter 7

The Master opened his eyes and stared blankly at the stream of numbers on the computer screen in front of him. Something had broken his concentration. The radio resting on top of the monitor crackled with a nearly unintelligible, tinny noise. The Master reached for the radio, but tangled his hands in a net of wires. Still bleary from spending so long hooked into the psytronic matrix of the computer program, he'd forgotten about the electrode cap on his head. Irritably, he tried to pull it off. "Aah!" he exclaimed painfully, remembering belatedly that the cap had inserted electronic pins into his skull for better signal conduction.

"Sir? Do you copy?" the voice on the radio crackled.

"Damn fools!" the Master growled, angry, sore and still not entirely awake. He reached up behind him and found the release button for the cap. He took a moment to prod his head gingerly, and grimaced when he saw spots of blood on his fingertips.

"Sir?" the radio squawked.

The Master grabbed it. "What do you want, Captain?" he barked, still fingering his abused scalp.

"I said we found the Doctor, sir. He and a young woman were in that blue box, sir, just like you said. And incredibly, sir, the Doctor is both alive and whole. We're bringing them to you now, sir."

The Master nearly dropped the radio. "What do you mean, he's whole? That's impossible."

"I know that, sir. But it's true. It's definitely the Doctor, and there's not a scratch on him, sir."

The Master turned to an adjacent computer screen and turned on the security feed. He cycled the dial through dozens of cameras until he saw the security party disembarking from the lift onto his level. He zoomed the focus in. There was no mistake. It was the Doctor, all right, his hands manacled behind his back, strolling on his own two feet into the corridor, flanked by guards.

"Very good, captain," the Master mumbled into the radio. Time Lords could regenerate in a variety of circumstances, but not when they'd been dismembered as catastrophically as the Doctor had been. Had the Doctor rigged up a false camera feed and fooled the security system somehow? Or worse, had the Time Lords gifted him with improved regenerative abilities that had allowed him to survive and keep his latest form? Either way, it was a fortuitous fluke, as it meant the Master wouldn't have to suffer the electrode cap for much longer.

**o0o**

"Where are we going?" he asked Nyssa, whispering. The last time he'd asked a question, the guard at his back had poked him with a gun barrel and told him to be quiet. Nyssa had been right; these people were definitely not his friends.

"To the Master," she murmured back.

"Oh. I take it the Master is not a friend, either?"

Nyssa stared straight ahead, her expression grim. "No, he's not."

He was confused. He liked being friends with people. Friendship had so many good things about it that he couldn't understand why anyone would choose not to be friends. So far, nothing about these guards made him feel good, and now Nyssa was telling him there was someone else that wasn't his friend? "Why?" he asked her.

"Because he kills people and destroy planets, and you don't approve of that."

With so much colour, shape and texture in the universe, he couldn't imagine what it would be like to have all that taken away. Why would someone do that? Even the guards who were being mean to him were interesting to look at, and he was amazed at how similar, yet different they all were in the ways they moved and spoke, and he was learning more about them in every moment. Yes, he decided, even if one of these guards were taken away, the universe would be poorer for losing that little bit of uniqueness, and that would make him feel terrible. Nyssa knew him well.

"Too right," he agreed emphatically.

"I told you to shut up!" the guard behind him growled.

"No, you told me to be quiet—ow!" he winced as the guard's gun barrel dug into the skin of his back.

"And now I'm ordering you to shut up, Chatty," the guard answered.

He saw Nyssa look at him sympathetically. But he was all right. Pain didn't last, and it was worth it to learn more about these people. For instance, he'd told that guard his name twice now, but the man still hadn't got it right. Perhaps he had a memory problem as well. And who knew what else he would discover about people when he finally got to meet the Master?

He walked with Nyssa to a door at the end of the corridor. One of the guards—Captain, the others had called him—pressed a button on a panel outside the door. "Sir?" the captain spoke into the grill, "We've arrived."

The door buzzed and slid open. "Send them in, captain," a smooth voice commanded from within the room.

"Go on," the guard who couldn't remember names ordered, jabbing the Doctor in the back with his gun once more. He obliged quickly, hopping over the threshold into a dim control centre. The room was rather small, and the far wall was taken up with a massive computer bank (Nyssa had provided him with the correct terminology), covered in highly interesting arrangements of blinking lights and monitor screens. In front of the computer was a tall, metallic chair, bolted to the floor, and facing the computer. It was impossible to see if anyone was seated in it, although there was a mechanical arm attached to the top that was sprouting a mesh of wires and needles, like a giant robotic flower.

He was enthralled with the place, staring at the intricate mass of circuitry atop the chair, and then trying to spot any pattern in the way the computer buttons flickered. It was dizzying, in a good way, and he grinned broadly. He leaned towards Nyssa. "What a remarkable room!"

"Doctor," Nyssa chided softly.

"Come now, Nyssa. Look at all the lights and colours. That chair! Aren't you impressed?" He rested a hand on her shoulder, trying to engage her, but his enthusiasm dimmed to see Nyssa looking so grim and uncomfortable. He dropped his hand. "Well, I certainly am," he muttered.

"I'm pleased to hear that, Doctor. After all this time, I was beginning to think you didn't want to confront me. Certainly, throwing yourself into an unshielded hadronic force field is a rather severe means of avoidance," the smooth, male voice remarked in a vaguely playful tone. "Wait outside, captain."

"Yessir!" the guard behind them saluted and stepped out into the corridor, and the door slid shut.

"Hadronic force field?!" Nyssa repeated.

"What?" The Doctor eyed her, and was taken aback by the expression of shock on her pretty face as she stared back at him.

The smooth voice laughed. "Modesty, Doctor? How unlike you!"

The Doctor realized that the speaker must be seated in the chair, and thinking back to what Nyssa had told him earlier, he realized whom the speaker must be. With a great feeling of satisfaction, he announced, "You must be the Master!"

The great metal chair swivelled to face him. Seated on it was a man, similar to, but subtly different from all the other men he'd seen so far. This man was clothed in dark black, with a high, silver-accented collar, and sported a ring of facial hair around his mouth. The man's mouth and eyes crinkled with mischievous humour, and he glanced at Nyssa. "Who else would I be?"

**o0o**

"That's very odd," the Doctor murmured, tapping at the keypad insistently. Finally, the screen complied with his request, albeit it sluggishly.

"What? Found a map, yet?"

"I've found the correct directory, yes, but it's taking a while to process. Almost as if there's something else consuming the memory."

"Well, could you hurry it up? You're getting heavier by the minute," Tegan huffed into the Doctor's ear.

"Let me see if I can locate what's slowing it down. Might be able to shut it off, depending on what it is."

"Oh, not this again," Tegan grumbled, "Just be more careful this time."

The Doctor chose to ignore the barb and tapped at the keypad. "Yes, it's one program, consuming almost half of the system's procedural memory. That's enormous. What could it be for?" He tried to access the program, but was promptly locked out by a firewall. Going back a step, he quickly manoeuvred around the firewall and turned it off. Accessing the trouble program again, a password screen popped up.

"Damn."

"Doctor?"

"Password. What would the Master use as password?"

"'Evil'? 'Lunatic'? 'Killing'?" Tegan suggested.

"I'm trying to think _like_ the Master, not _about_ the Master, Tegan."

"Oh."

On a whim, the Doctor tried 'Rassilon.' The screen returned with _Invalid password_. He typed in "gallifrey" next, but that wasn't it either. Then the screen changed again: _Three bad login attempts will precipitate automatic system lockout and trigger a security alert. Try again, DOCTOR._

"Well, how paranoid is he, expecting you to try this?" Tegan exclaimed.

"You know," the Doctor mused aloud, "I think he is."

He thought again of how the armed guards and dropping bulkheads had practically herded him and Tegan to the lift that brought them directly to the transmitter room. It was also curious that the transmitter room had been completely unguarded, and none of the alarms had gone off until after the Doctor had shut the system down. And now, here was this message, specifically programmed into the system for the Doctor's benefit. It wasn't uncommon for the Master's plans to have holes, but not to this extent. It was as if the Master wanted to be stopped. He looked at the message again. "Breadcrumbs," he murmured.

"Is that the password?" Tegan asked.

"No. I mean that this message is a clue. One in a series of clues, actually. A trail of breadcrumbs, as it were."

"Oh, like Hansel and Gretel. Leading them to the witch's house."

"Actually, Hansel and Gretel left themselves the trail of breadcrumbs to lead them back home. And it wasn't a witch, per se. They came upon the old woman's bread house by accident," the Doctor corrected her automatically. He saw her reflection roll her eyes. "But you have the right idea. I think the Master intended for me to shut down his transmitter, and now he wants me to access this program. Which means that the password must be something obvious. Something only he and I would know." Which, the Doctor reminded himself, didn't narrow the field very much, actually.

"Sounds like a trap to me."

"I suspect it's all been a trap, since the moment the TARDIS materialized on this base. The real question is, what's it all for?" the Doctor said, staring at the warning message on the screen: _Try again, DOCTOR_. He stared at the last word. _DOCTOR_. Something only he and the Master knew...

_No_, the Doctor thought, he wouldn't have, _would he_? He poised his fingers over the keys and typed. He pressed enter, and the program opened.

"You did it! What was the password?" Tegan asked.

The Doctor barely heard her, as line after line of numbers and symbols scrolled by on the screen. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at, but he didn't want to believe it. It boggled his mind just to think of how the Master could have got hold of it. There was no doubt, though. "Oh, no," he groaned, feeling sick with dread.

"What is that? Math?"

_Bless Tegan_. "It's Omega's Equation," the Doctor intoned, awed by the words coming out of his mouth.

"Omega? You don't mean—?"

"Yes. It was Omega's mathematical genius that allowed the creation of the Eye of Harmony. Rassilon later decreed that it was too dangerous to allow such knowledge to exist and banned Omega's work from ever being studied or used again. But somehow the Master's found it. If he solves Omega's Equation, he'll have the means to create as many Eyes of Harmony as he'd like. Unlimited power, and utter devastation for millions of worlds across countless galaxies."

The Doctor couldn't find the words to do justice to the magnitude of the situation. The Master had once before manipulated knowledge beyond his understanding and almost destroyed the universe. Now he was poised to do it again. Next to Omega's Equation, the Master's transmitter had been a drop in the ocean.


	8. Chapter 8

Nyssa stood, her body tense, her eyes staring back at the Master with the strength of steel. "What have you done to him?" she demanded.

The Master turned his smiling eyes back on the Doctor. "I'm afraid honesty forbids me taking credit for the Doctor's miraculous survival. I thought I was the master at cheating death, but in this case, Doctor, I concede. How did you survive?"

"Survive what?" the Doctor asked.

"What are you talking about?" Nyssa interjected.

"She's not a child, Doctor, no need to spare her delicate sensibilities. How did you regenerate yourself after being severed by my hadronic force field?" the Master prodded.

"I don't know, how?" the Doctor asked.

Nyssa was stunned. "Hadronic energy?"

"What is that?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"Hadronic energy, Doctor. It's extremely dense, and highly corrosive. It destroys matter on contact, which is why hadronic force fields are normally shielded by a barrier of neutrinos," Nyssa explained. She turned to glare viciously at the Master.

"Which you disabled when you tore out the wiring on the main computer bank after disabling the transmitter. The security field cut you neatly in two. Very careless of you, Doctor," the Master added dismissively.

"I suppose it was," the Doctor agreed.

Nyssa stared at the Doctor in newfound awe. No wonder he wasn't in his right mind.

"You don't remember?" the Master asked, eyeing him.

Nyssa stared at the Doctor, and watched as he shrugged innocently. She'd seen him bluff before, but this wasn't an act. He really didn't remember anything. Not himself, not the TARDIS, not even his most personal enemy. Not even her. Nyssa felt an unexpectedly deep pang of sadness, but forced herself to push it aside. It was up to her to protect him, then. She owed him that.

The Master scrutinized the Doctor for a long moment, then remarked, "However you survived, it doesn't matter. I'm just pleased that you have."

"Oh! That's quite nice of you, thanks." Grinning happily, the Doctor nudged Nyssa; "He's certainly being friendly for someone you said wasn't my friend."

"Trust me, Doctor, he's not," Nyssa assured him.

"Oh, but I am!" the Master protested, adopting a hurt expression. He got out of his chair and took a step towards them. Nyssa stepped in front of the Doctor, wishing she still had her metal pipe. The Master stopped, smiled placatingly and raised his hands.

"You are? That's wonderful!" the Doctor effused. Nyssa felt him place his hands on her shoulders again. Such a confident, sure grip. At least that hadn't changed. "Isn't it, Nyssa? Another friend!"

"He's trying to mislead you, Doctor," Nyssa insisted sternly.

"Why?"

Nyssa started to respond, but didn't have a ready answer. The Master's plans usually only involved the Doctor as a corpse. What was he up to?

**o0o**

Tegan stared at the computer screen, trying to ignore the mounting fatigue in her arms. "Why would the Master want you to see this? If it could give him the power you say it could, why would he want you to stop him?"

"Good question. I don't know." The Doctor tapped at the keypad again.

"What are you doing?" Tegan asked.

"No," the Doctor sighed, "The program is running from a different computer. This is only a remote link, so I can't shut it down from here. I'll have to trace it to the source."

"And when you find it, you'll be able to shut it down?" Tegan hoped.

"Presumably. I imagine the Master's intentions are somewhat different, however."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? This sounds an awful lot like a trap to me, Doctor." Tegan earned herself a withering stare from the Doctor.

"Of course it's a trap! Didn't I just get through saying that?"

"Right. So naturally, you want to be right into the middle of it. I forgot how fond you are of obviously bad ideas."

The Doctor was tapping away at the keypad once more. "Not now, Tegan. Here it is, twelfth level, junction three. Come on."

Tegan gratefully lowered him to the floor so he could once again scramble onto her back, but she couldn't help hesitating. All that to-do about Omega's math was certainly impressive, but to Tegan it sounded like just another lure being dangled in front of the Doctor. The last one had got him cut in half. Who knew what this next one held in store for them?

"Come on, Tegan. This game of the Master's has gone on long enough. I think it's time we found out what's really going on."

Tegan balked for a moment longer, working up her courage. "Easy for you to say. _I'm_ the one being asked to walk into the trap."

**o0o**

"You serve me, Doctor. We have been companions for a very long time, in fact," the Master explained.

"Then why would Nyssa tell me otherwise?" the Doctor asked, looking from one to the other in bemusement.

"Because she is the one who is attempting to mislead you. I only want to help you, Doctor. As I always have."

"No, Doctor! Don't listen to him! It's not true!" Nyssa argued.

He wanted to believe the Master, but he already believed Nyssa. How could they both be right when they were saying opposite things? Their words were making his head feel the same way it had when he thought about the objects inside other objects, except understanding this was like trying to put the same two objects inside each other. Every time he tried to visualize it, it just made him dizzy.

The Master pointed at Nyssa. "You see how agitated she is? She knows I've found her out, Doctor. She is trying to take advantage of your condition, which is why I had to send my guards to capture you. I knew she'd never let you go of her own free will. It's not her way, you see."

The Doctor looked at Nyssa. She looked frightened. He looked at the Master. The Master did not look frightened. Was that because the Master was right? Looking at the Master's eyes, the Doctor began to feel like an object inside another object. It was as if the Master was full of ever-smaller cubes within cubes, and as the Doctor opened each one, more of what the Master said began to make sense.

"Doctor, look at me," Nyssa's voice followed faintly behind the Doctor, "You know I care about you. The Master is your enemy. He killed my father, destroyed my home planet, and caused you to nearly die once before." Then her hands were on his shoulders. He remembered with clarity how soft and warm her hands were, and how feverishly they had held him. He felt her hands begin to pull him out of the Master's cubes, back to the way things had been. Finally, he blinked and looked down at her. "Don't you trust me?" she asked.

Didn't he? "I—"

"Don't let yourself be swayed by that timorous female, Doctor, she speaks nothing but lies," the Master cut in swiftly. "As a matter of fact, it was she who wiped your memory in an attempt to poison you against me and gain access to the TARDIS. Had my soldiers not found you when they did, it is likely she would have killed you by now."

The Doctor turned back to the Master, and Nyssa's grip on his shoulders no longer seemed so gentle and warm. It was the grip of a creature that wouldn't let go, wanted to consume him, dig into his flesh and make him into something else. A new, terrible feeling seized his gut. It was fear. He had to get away from her, from her reaching, gripping, strangling hands. He grabbed Nyssa's hands and pulled them off of him.

Nyssa stared at the Doctor, her eyes pleading. Pleading for what, the Doctor wondered, his friendship, or to sink her fingers into him and kill him? Again, his mind was tied up in confusion. "That's a lie. I'm your friend, Doctor. He's the one who's manipulating you. You must remember—!"

"Your trickery is useless, I know what you are!" the Master spat, grabbing Nyssa by the arm and yanking her away from the Doctor. He picked up his radio. "Captain!"

Nyssa fought his grip, but it was too powerful. The Doctor just stood there, looking at both of them in blank puzzlement. He didn't know what he thought anymore.

The door opened and the guard stepped into the room and snapped to attention. "Sir!"

"Take this girl and lock her up someplace where she won't be able to interfere in my plans any longer."

"Yessir."

"Doctor!" Nyssa pleaded as the guard pinned her arm behind her back.

"You're not going to hurt or kill her, are you?" the Doctor asked. "Because I don't approve of that." He cocked his head at the Master, "Do I?"


	9. Chapter 9

Tegan looked both ways, making sure the corridor was clear before continuing. Other than to direct her where to turn, the Doctor had passed the last several minutes as a silent lump on her back. For all the chaos that had surrounded them when she and Doctor had made their way to the transmitter, the base was positively peaceful. "Don't know why I bother, really," Tegan muttered, growing tired of the quiet. She waited for him to ask.

"With what?" the Doctor finally acquiesced, sounding as though he'd just woken up.

"Checking around the corners. If the Master wants us to find him so badly, he's hardly going to order his guards to kill us or anything."

"No, but he might order them to capture us."

"Same difference."

"Not really. If we get captured, we'll be meeting the Master entirely on his terms, putting us at a much greater disadvantage than if we found him ourselves. Considering we're pawns in his game already, I don't think it'd be wise to play into his hands any more than we already have."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Kind of you to say so."

"Well, that's me, sweet and kind to a fault."

Unexpectedly, the Doctor snorted into her shoulder.

Tegan smirked to herself, glad the Doctor was still in good humour. "What was that for?" she demanded anyway, pretending insult.

"Er, nothing. A tickle in my nose. Sorry."

"Oh, so now I'm your kerchief as well as your packhorse? You really know how to flatter a girl."

"I said I was sorry."

"Not half as much as I am. Time Lord bogeys better wash out, Doctor."

"Tegan!"

She was about to summon up a sharp retort, when she discerned the sound of footsteps and voices up ahead. A bolt of panic shot up her spine. "Rabbits!"

"In there!" the Doctor hissed.

Tegan looked and saw a door on the other side of the corridor. It was slightly ajar, and appeared dark inside. She dashed over to it, pushed it open and darted inside. She closed the door quickly and stood off to the side, in case her ankles or feet might be visible beneath the door. Glancing around, she noticed the room was some sort of pantry. She heard the footsteps outside grow steadily closer.

"Tegan?" the Doctor murmured.

"What?"

"Do you mind?"

Tegan realized that she had been pressing up against the wall, squashing the Doctor. She took a step forward and felt the Doctor relax. "Better?" she asked softly.

"Shush!" the Doctor ordered.

"This thing weighs a ton!" one of the voices outside complained audibly.

"It weighed a ton the first time we carried it. It's at least two or three by now," another voice added, sounding suitably strained.

Tegan could feel her heart begin to drum. _Just keep going, mates_, she urged silently.

**o0o**

The Master grinned. Just him and the Doctor, as it should be! He remained a bit puzzled by the Doctor's inexplicable survival, and still more by his curious bout of post-regenerative amnesia. But then, this particular incarnation of the Doctor did seem generally more effete and inept than his predecessors. Still, he'd expected the Doctor to put up more of a fight, and it was not the Master's intent to now look a gift-horse in the mouth.

The Doctor smiled back, but it was a hesitating, uncertain grin.

The Master stepped back to his computer and pulled up the program he'd been running. The monitor screen filled with numbers and symbols. "Does this look familiar to you?" the Master asked, stepping aside so the Doctor had an unobstructed view.

The Doctor pulled his brows together and blinked. "No."

"Are you sure, Doctor?"

The Doctor looked at him with innocent befuddlement. "I don't know. I don't think so. Why did Nyssa want to kill me? Why would she have wiped my memory, as you say?"

The Master was only mildly disappointed. He hadn't expected the Doctor to give him what he wanted, and he had prepared accordingly. He put on his best friendly smile and waved dismissively. "Never mind about the girl, Doctor. It is more important that we repair the damage that she's done. Come and sit."

"You know, it's strange," the Doctor mused, his attention once more on the computer, "If you and Nyssa hadn't told me I'd lost my memory, I'd never have known it. I don't even miss it. Can something really be lost if it isn't missed? And how can one miss something he doesn't remember ever having in the first place?"

"A fascinating philosophical question, Doctor. But you have more important things to think about."

The Doctor rubbed his temples and smirked. "I seem to do quite a bit of thinking. And walking. And talking, as well. I confess, it's all rather tiring."

"Then by all means, have a seat, Doctor," the Master suggested, indicating the chair with the electrode cap attached to the top. He could feel prickles of impatience forming at the Doctor's indolent behaviour.

The Doctor eyed it curiously, and walked over. Instead of sitting down, he leaned over to inspect the electrode cap hooked to the back of the chair. "You know, I think this is the most amazing thing I've seen all day. It's so tremendously complicated and pretty, with all the wires and metal bits," he exclaimed excitedly, glancing at the Master, "What is it?"

"I'll tell you, after you sit down," the Master answered with considerable restraint.

The Doctor looked puzzled. "But I can look at it much more closely while I'm standing, don't you think?" He walked around the chair, evidently to examine the cap from another angle. "It's the same all around, isn't it? It's covered in all sorts of complicated things, but they're all the same complicated things on every side!"

"Doctor—"

"Funny how something can look ordered and disordered at the same time like that."

"Sit DOWN!" the Master finally barked.


	10. Chapter 10

Tegan ignored the Doctor's ticklish breath on her cheek as she stood inside the small room, wondering furiously why, out of the entire corridor, the guards had chosen to rest outside this door?

"It's too bad, you know? All the trouble we went through putting this thing together, and we didn't even get to fire it. Would've been sweet to see that box fly apart," one of the guards lamented.

"_If_ it would've actually blown it up," the other responded dubiously.

"Fwah! Why else would he have opened the door?"

"You didn't see the inside of that thing. Whatever technology the Doctor has, it's way beyond convention."

Tegan's ears pricked. They'd found the TARDIS!

"Yeah," the first guard chortled, "Just like that girl. Nothing standard issue about her, was there? Too bad she was wearing trousers, eh?"

The second guard _hmm_ed in evident agreement. Tegan felt her jaw tighten with indignation. She'd always felt a certain responsibility for Nyssa, who was intelligent and cool-headed, but a bit too pampered and naive than Tegan thought prudent. She often found herself reacting like a protective older sister, and it rubbed her the wrong way to hear a couple of bodgy diggers perve about Nyssa like the latest centrefold.

"Still, though," the second guard said, "I've seen some awfully strange things today. It's all got me wondering what kind of man the Master is, when he's got enemies like the Doctor."

**o0o**

"Would you please sit still?" the Master snapped, finding it impossible to lower the electrode cap onto the Doctor's turning and bobbing head.

"Sorry, it's just that there's so much to see. All these blinking lights and things." The Doctor reached towards the computer console. "What does—?"

"No!" the Master interrupted, grabbing his wrist. The Doctor eyed him with petulant confusion, so the Master did his best to soften his demeanour. He let the Doctor go and patted the back of his hand. "Some of these controls are very delicate, Doctor, and you could get injured, touching them like that."

The Doctor's face fell. "Oh. Sorry."

The Master chuckled. "Not at all, Doctor. Curiosity is nothing to apologize for! Still, I think it'd be a good idea if you were to allow me to strap your arms into these buckles, just for safety's sake."

The Doctor looked down at the metal straps lying open on the arms of the chair. "Safety buckles for my arms? How considerate of you," he remarked, grinning up at the Master.

"Of course," the Master smiled back and snapped the metal restraints into place on the Doctor's lean forearms. He still couldn't quite believe the Doctor's idiotic alacrity, and for a moment, as he took in the sight of the Doctor sitting easily in the chair, the electrode cap hovering over his blond crown, his limbs restrained, and that ignorant grin plastered all over his bland face, the Master felt a small twinge of guilt. But the weakness lasted only a fraction of a second. Was it the butcher's fault that the lamb wanted to be lead to the slaughter?

**o0o**

"Come off it, Sarge. If the Master was up to something evil, don't you think the government would have found out about it by now?" the first guard jeered.

"Maybe they have. Maybe the government sent this 'Doctor' fellow. It could be he's covert ops or something. We don't know," the sergeant insisted.

_Right_, Tegan sneered to herself; popping up in a conspicuous blue box with a stick of celery on your lapel and introducing yourself to everyone in earshot was classic undercover procedure. _Just go, already!_ She could feel the Doctor's grip on her shoulders growing strained.

"All I know is, the Master's paying my pension at the moment. And frankly, that's all I need to know."

"Sure. It's always better for your conscious to be able to say 'I was just following orders,' isn't it?" the sergeant remarked significantly.

"Careful, I think I see smoke coming out your ears, Sarge! What say we get back to hauling this thing to the armoury?"

"Alright. Bloody heavy thing."

Tegan breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"Wouldn't be half so heavy if you spent less time thinking and more time in PT, Sarge."

"That's enough, corporal."

"Right, sorry sir." Tegan could hear the smile in his voice. She saw the shadows of the two men's feet as they prepared to lift their burden.

Tegan eased out of her stiff posture. That was close! But her relief was short-lived, as the Doctor suddenly lost his grip on her shoulders. Tegan turned around and tried to grab him, but gravity worked faster and the Doctor hit the floor with a sickeningly loud _thud_. Kneeling by the Doctor, Tegan saw the Doctor appeared a bit stunned, but not seriously hurt.

"What was that?" one of the voices outside asked.

The Doctor shot Tegan a panicked look and they both froze.

"Where'd it come from?" the other guard asked.

"Sounded like it came from in here."

"I'll take a look."

Tegan jumped at the unmistakable sound of a hand on the doorknob. She looked at the Doctor.

"Hide!" he hissed.

She glanced around the pantry. There was a countertop, cupboards above and below it, and something that looked like a broom closet. Yes, that was it! She grabbed the Doctor as the door began to swing open.

**o0o**

The sergeant opened the door, and recognized the darkened room as one of the small staff pantries. That explained the noise, something must have fallen. Still, it was an awfully loud thud, and some of the kitchen equipment was quite expensive and potentially hazardous when broken, so it made sense to have a quick look. He turned on the lights and glanced around.

Oddly, everything seemed to be in place.

"Huh. Looks alright to me," he reported over his shoulder to the corporal, standing outside next to the unused moonbuster. "You sure it came from in here?"

"It sounded like it came from the other side of that wall," the corporal shrugged, by way of an explanation.

The sergeant looked at the wall in question. "Really big mice?" he mused aloud. Then he yawned, and reflected on the fact that he was supposed to have been off-duty several hours before, if not for this little matter of the Doctor and his pretty girl and inexplicable blue box. He surveyed the small room once more, and noticed the coffee dispenser sitting alluringly on the counter top.

"Squared away?" the corporal asked.

"Seems so. Tell you what, though, before we drag that damn gun any farther, I could do with some chemical stimulation." The sergeant found a stack of disposable cups next to the dispenser and took one, flicking the switch to set the dispenser rumbling away. He waited for the little light on front to come on, then slid his cup underneath and pressed the dispense button. The room quickly filled with the scent of brewing beans, and the sergeant inhaled deeply, feeling slightly more invigorated just by the smell.

"I like the way you're thinking, now, Sarge! Cream and sugar for me," the corporal remarked behind him.

"Sod you," the sergeant answered, watching the last few precious drops dribble into his cup. He lifted it to his face and sniffed deeply before taking a small sip. It was so hot it nearly scalded his tongue. Then the taste came through, and he grimaced, having forgotten that what the kitchens here called coffee bore very little resemblance to the real thing, aside from being dark and pumped full of caffeine.

The corporal sniggered. "Still tastes like shit?"

The sergeant put his cup down and looked for the cream and sugar. It wasn't on the countertop. "Not even shit is _this_ bad."

"You know, they say it's a sign of madness to keep doing the same thing, expecting different results," the corporal teased.

"The kitchen staff said they'd gone with a different supplier this time." The sergeant opened the cupboard above the countertop to continue his search for the condiments, and was completely unprepared for what he saw. The Doctor. It was very clearly, unmistakably the Doctor. In the cupboard. Staring at him, blinking, breathing and alive. Except that he was missing his entire lower body. The sergeant flashed back to that moment on the gantry in the transmitter room, when he and the captain had found the Doctor's rendered remains. The sergeant held the cupboard door open and just stared, open-mouthed and silent.

The Doctor grinned lamely and held up the sugar bowl. "One lump or two?"


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor smiled at the guard more out of reflex than anything else. It struck him, as he waited for the guard to snap out of his shocked stupor, that the man looked familiar, but the Doctor couldn't immediately reckon why. Guards had a tendency to all look alike anyway, what with their uniforms and all.

"What's going on, here?" the guard finally spluttered.

"Yes, well, that's going to take some explaining—"

"If you're here, then who is it the captain just took to the Master?" the guard interrupted.

"Who you talking to, Sarge?" the other guard asked. The Doctor couldn't see him past the cupboard door.

The sergeant didn't look away from the Doctor. "Someone...who can't be who he looks like. Unless the other one wasn't who _he_ looked like."

The Doctor was as confused by that as the sergeant seemed to be. "Sorry, what?"

The other guard walked into view (completely unfamiliar, fortunately), looked at the Doctor and laughed. "How the hell did you wind up in there?"

The Doctor was surprised. It was refreshing that finally someone wasn't reacting in horror at the sight of him. Still, he was rather uncomfortably crammed into the cupboard and his dignity had taken about as much insult as it could stand today, without being laughed at, too. "Obviously, I was looking for the sugar," he snapped, putting the jar back down in front of himself on the shelf.

The guard appeared ready to retort when the sergeant held up a hand. "That'll be enough, corporal."

The corporal sobered quickly and stepped back. "Sorry, sir."

"So anyway, what are you playing at?" the sergeant wheeled back on the Doctor, "Who was the other one? A decoy? A hologram?" he narrowed his eyes at the Doctor, "You haven't got a twin, have you?"

"What I haven't got is any idea what you're talking about," the Doctor answered honestly, still trying to work out where he'd seen the sergeant before.

"The man my captain and I captured who's your spitting image! Except, you know, with legs and such."

Then the Doctor remembered where he'd seen him before. On the gantry in the transmitter room, after he'd noticed that his lower half was missing. "What was he wearing?" The sergeant seemed thrown off by the question. The Doctor sighed; human brains were such fragile things, so easily overburdened. "The man who looked exactly like me; was he wearing red and white striped trousers and white trainers?" he asked slowly, his ridiculous idea from the transmitter room suddenly seeming entirely plausible.

"He was. Well, he had the trousers, but that was all. He was bare-chested and barefoot," the sergeant answered, adding, "The girl with him looked rather dishevelled, as well."

The Doctor felt his discomfort increase exponentially. "Girl?"

"Short; curly brown hair; maroon suit. The captain took them both into custody."

The Doctor sighed unhappily. Nyssa. At least that meant she was all right. Well, she had been, at least. Who knew what the Master would do with her? Given their history, the Doctor was very motivated in keeping Nyssa away from the Master. She had come a long way from the innocent girl she'd been when he'd first met her, but he knew how deeply the loss of her father still haunted her. But that was a concern best reserved for later. If what the sergeant was telling him was true, then the Doctor had a far more interesting and troubling problem at hand.

**o0o**

"Now, Doctor, this next step will cause you some discomfort, but trust me, it is the only way to we will be able to recover your missing memory," the Master said gently.

The Doctor sat as still as he could, eager to keep his new friend from getting cross with him again. It was hard to do, since he really wanted to see what the Master was doing to the device above his head. The Master had called it an "electrode cap," but the Doctor didn't know exactly what that meant. But the Master had promised him that he would soon find out, and the anticipation was hard to endure.

The Master stepped away from him and walked over the computer bank. He pressed one of the brightly coloured buttons, but before the Doctor could ask what it was for, he felt the cap press down onto his head. Then, all of the sudden his scalp exploded with dozens of points of the worst pain ever. He'd felt pain before, when the guard had twisted his arm, but this was a whole new kind of pain; sharp, focused, and deep. There was nothing at all interesting or fun about this pain. He flinched in the chair and yelped, scraping his wrists against the restraints, just wanting it to stop.

"I warned you," the Master chided. "Don't worry, it'll soon subside, once the conductors have drilled themselves into your skull."

The Doctor opened his eyes to look at the Master, and was surprised to find that his eyes were wet, blurring his vision until he blinked.

"Why into my skull?" he asked, when the pain was dull enough that he could remember how to speak again.

"The better to read your mind with," the Master responded, reaching behind the computer bank and pulling out another electrode cap. The sight of it suddenly made the Doctor feel afraid.

"Please, not another one! I don't like this pain," he whimpered, as the prick points on his head continued to throb.

"This one is for me. You see these wires, connecting this cap to yours? It will enable me to see what it is in your mind, and put that knowledge into the computer," the Master explained, making a few minor adjustments to the cap and then setting it on his own head.

The Doctor was too confused and distracted by his aching head to take in much of what the Master was saying. Why would the Master want to cause himself hurt and discomfort as bad as this? The Doctor had been perfectly happy without his memories, without the pain and fear, and without the confusion of the Master and Nyssa each telling him things that contradicted each other and forced him to try and see things in his mind that didn't make sense.

**o0o**

Tegan remained pressed against the back wall of the narrow broom closet, shocked at the strange sort of luck that caused the guards to look in the cupboard first. For a few frantic moments, she considered grabbing the mop, bursting out of the closet and knocking the guards senseless, before reality intruded and she realized that barging into the open with a mop would likely only get her promptly arrested, or shot, depending on how trigger-happy this lot happened to be. Itching with a sense of frustrated futility, Tegan kept silent and hidden and listened to the exchange outside.

"I suppose that means you'll be arresting me, as well?" the Doctor asked, with his all-too-familiar tone of resignation.

The guards were strangely silent. "What is it, Sarge?" one finally asked.

"Nothing, corporal. I'm just trying to figure how we're going to escort him to the Master."

"Oh. Oh, yeah," the corporal chortled.

"Speaking of, how is it you got yourself up here, Doctor? Have any help?"

Knowing the Doctor, Tegan prepared to surrender herself.

"No, I climbed. You'd be surprised how much more acrobatic one becomes without legs to weigh one down."

Tegan stood still, listening with interest. So she was to stay hidden, then?

"I'll take your word on that, Doctor," the sergeant answered, sounding slightly dubious. "Corporal, empty the ammunition crate for the moonbuster."

"Sir?"

"I want to put him in it."

Tegan covered her mouth.

"...Yes, sir."

"Is that really necessary?" the Doctor positively whined. "I'd much rather be carried."

"Sure you would. That way you'd be in reach of our necks. I'm not taking any chances with you, Doctor. You're going in the crate."

"Going to the Master, or to the holding cells? I presume you have holding cells?"

"We do, but the Master wants you to be brought to him. He ended up ordering that the girl get put in the detention cells."

Tegan felt slightly relieved. Anything was better than being stuck one-on-one with the Master.

She heard a grunt, and a minor crash, then the sound of scraping. "Here we are," the corporal's voice panted a few seconds later, "I tell you, Sarge, this is one they don't cover in the manual, that's for sure!"

Tegan could only imagine how it must have looked as the two guards moved the abridged Time Lord from the cupboard to the crate, after deciding to cuff the Doctor's hands first, just in case he tried any "acrobatics." Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tegan was hard-pressed to stifle her giggling at the string of, "That's my finger!" "Watch his teeth." "Hold it higher!" and "All this fuss really isn't necessary" that drifted through the closet door.

Finally, the cacophony died down. Tegan imagined that the corporal and the sergeant must have been hauling the crate between them, one in front, and the other behind. "Alright, off we go," the sergeant huffed.

"How far is it to the Master's, er, headquarters?" the Doctor asked.

"Too far. I think the moonbuster was lighter than him, Sarge!"

"Glad you're finding this all so amusing," the Doctor grumbled.

Tegan almost snorted.

"It's two levels up," the sergeant answered, not sounding amused.

"Oh, that's not too bad. I imagine it would be farther to go if you were to take me to the holding cells."

"That's a point," the corporal agreed, "They're five levels below us, near the boiler system. It gets hot as hell down there."

"Well then! Thank goodness for small favours, eh?" the Doctor quipped, his voice growing marginally louder, then fainter as the guards carried him past Tegan's hiding place. "From the technology I've seen, would I be right in guessing that the holding cells are secured with key cards?"

"Yeah. Damn things rarely work, though. Have to swipe them over and over again to get them to work," the corporal said.

"A wise move," the Doctor continued, "so long as the jailor keeps the card on his person. Those kinds of cells are impossible to force from the inside. I can speak from experience, you know..."

The odd little conversation drifted out of earshot as the guards retreated out of the room and down the corridor. Tegan waited in her closet for several long moments, making sure that no one was coming back, and because she was more than a little baffled by the Doctor. Tegan wondered why the guards didn't find the Doctor's sudden curiosity about the holding cells slightly suspicious. It was certainly puzzling to her, especially since the guards weren't taking him there...

"Nyssa!" Tegan suddenly realized. Nyssa was in the holding cells. Which were located five floors down, near the boiler system, and could only be opened by a key card, which Tegan would most likely have to get from the jailor himself, somehow. She smiled at the Doctor's daft bit of cunning and left her closet, checking to make sure the corridor was deserted before setting out in search of a lift.


	12. Chapter 12

In truth, the Doctor was glad the guards had thought up the box idea, because his arm muscles were spent and he had a splitting headache.

Once he'd got the corporal to detail all the pertinent information Tegan needed to free Nyssa, he'd been more than happy to stop talking.

He hadn't wanted to let on for Tegan's sake, but he'd been feeling increasingly sore and exhausted, and as he leaned back against the side of the wooden crate, he began to feel itchy, as well. He scratched the back of his neck, and contemplated taking off his jumper. It had been making his skin crawl since he'd been crammed into the cupboard, actually, and being crammed into the rough wooden box was little better. The itchy tingle travelled from his neck, down his arms and into his chest, making him more than a little annoyed. Finally, he couldn't take it anymore, and grabbed the singed bottom of his jumper and yanked it over his head, bunching it up and using it to pad his sore spine. This particular body was rather lanky, but he was already missing its fat padding. Thoracic vertebrae were never meant to be sat on.

"Alright in there?" the sergeant asked from behind.

"Just getting comfortable, thank you," the Doctor answered, miffed to find that removing the clothing hadn't really ameliorated his crawling skin. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and rolled up the sleeves. Compared to the whiteness of his shirt, the skin of his forearms looked a rather sickly shade of yellow. The Doctor was tempted to dismiss it as a quirk of the lighting, just as his muscle fatigue could easily be due to spending so much time hanging from Tegan's shoulders, but given his circumstance, he could think of a much more troubling explanation for his discomfort. Uraemia.

Healing up the way he had after being severed, his body was now bereft of any means of ridding itself of waste materials, and they had been gradually building up in his bloodstream ever since. The very act of healing so rapidly would have caused a metabolic upswing and flooded his system with toxic by-products, and all of his subsequent exertion had exacerbated the condition. The Doctor knew that without access to a blood filtration system, he would eventually slip into a coma and die. And if he did, there wasn't enough left of him to regenerate. The Doctor stared at his arms, unseeing, as the realisation that he could well be facing his final demise spread out chillingly before him.

No, there are more important concerns, the Doctor told himself firmly. No point in dwelling on what couldn't be changed, was there? Rolling his sleeves back down and re-buttoning the cuffs, the Doctor tried to ignore the queasy feeling in (what remained of) his gut and concentrate on the bigger issue at hand: that of the Master and Omega's Equation.

He closed his eyes and thought back to what he'd seen on the computer screen in the corridor. The equation was fairly straightforward in its operation; all one needed to add were the statistics unique to the star in question to ascertain the exact amount of stellar manipulation necessary to send that star nova. And bits and pieces of Omega's Equation did exist, for instructional purposes, but most of it was long believed gone. How had the Master found and reconstituted so much of it? Regardless, the Doctor mused, it was clear now why the Master had wanted him to find it.

As the guards carried him onto the lift, the Doctor felt his stomach twist uncomfortably. He was reasonably certain that he could stop the Master, but it seemed increasingly less likely that he could do so without things ending very badly for himself.

He rested his head against the back of the crate and massaged his temples, wondering if he'd done the right thing in sending Tegan after Nyssa. If he didn't survive, at least the girls could get back to the TARDIS, where they'd be safe. Stranded, but safe. Assuming Tegan was able to liberate Nyssa, of course, which the Doctor was less than confident about. Given the nature of the Master's activities, and especially if the Doctor were to die, the Time Lords would have to get involved, at least to collect the Doctor's TARDIS, and would likely take Tegan back home, and find somewhere suitable for Nyssa. After wiping their memories of their time with him, the Doctor figured sourly. Hardly the outcome he'd wanted, but wouldn't it just be a fitting end to this regeneration?

**o0o**

It didn't take Nyssa long to work out that there was no escape from this holding cell, nor from her guilty conscience. Nonetheless, she kept poking at the door hinge with a bent hair pick, since doing nothing made her feel even more useless.

She could imagine with sickening clarity how the Doctor would react when he came to his senses and realised what had gone on between them. And what would she tell him? That it had been a mistake and that she was sorry? It would sound so hollow in light of the situation. She had taken advantage of the Doctor for her own selfish satisfaction and there was no excusing it. And even supposing the Doctor did forgive her, how could they ever return their relationship to what it had been before? Living with her feelings unrequited was difficult, but doable. But this, _this_ was a complete betrayal of trust.

She'd be better off leaving.

Of course, Nyssa reflected, pausing to re-bend the hair clip, this could all be a lot of pointless fretting, once the Master got through with him. But Nyssa didn't even want to entertain that possibility. She couldn't let the Doctor die, knowing that their last bit of time together had been a manipulative, selfish lie. She had to rescue the Doctor; she had to apologise; she had to make things right, even though it was likely that their relationship had already been damaged beyond repair. But Nyssa was used to that.

Since meeting the Doctor, she'd lost her home, her father, and many good friends; but Nyssa was able to take solace from the fact that usually, in the end things were at least set right. It didn't justify the tragedies, but it made them easier to cope with. It was more important that things be right than comfortable. Besides, Nyssa told herself as she set upon the hinge with renewed effort, if her time with the Doctor had taught her anything, it was that she was quite good at coping.

**o0o**

The Master had pulled up a chair before activating his own electrode cap. He'd experienced the pain and disorientation of it all before, but it still hit him harshly enough to knock him off his feet. The Doctor had finally toned his yelping down to a mere whimper, so it was time to proceed.

The Master worked hard to contain his gleeful impatience. All the months of political manoeuvring to get the construction of his base approved by the government (once the suspicion surrounding the string of assassinations quieted down), the interminable building and training (and forging of documents to hide the true nature of the satellite and the defensive weaponry in case the government chose to change their mind, and the "accidents" to eliminate those personnel that endangered his plans), making sure his bogus transmission had enough authenticity and validity to it to draw in the Doctor; it was all about to pay off.

"Doctor, I am going to press a switch, and then our minds will be linked. You will feel some disorientation, but it is important that you relax," he instructed carefully.

"Linked? What do you mean? Why?"

"I am going to help you find your memories. Think of me as a conscience, guiding you."

The Doctor looked wide-eyed and uncertain, but he nodded. "Okay."

The Master smiled. This was almost too easy to be satisfying. "Look at the screen, and clear your mind." He flicked a switch to bring up Omega's Equation on the monitor. The Doctor obediently watched the numbers swirl, his expression gradually growing vacant.

The Master reached to an adjacent keypad and closed his eyes. Soon, the Doctor's knowledge and secrets would be his, and the power to make himself ruler over all of time and space would be at his sole command, and the Doctor would be left an empty husk, quite incapable of stopping him. "Contact," he murmured, pressing the appropriate button.


	13. Chapter 13

_All right, Tegan, time to do this_, she thought to herself bracingly.

At the moment, she was crouched down and pressed flat as could be against a bank of security cameras, watching the rotund warden sit behind his desk and calmly flip through a magazine. She could see the key card protruding from his breast pocket. Tegan rubbed at her knees, which had started to tingle numbly from spending the last several minutes motionless. She had found the prison level with ease, but didn't have the slightest clue how she supposed to get the key card from the warden without getting captured or shot by his sidearm. She had sort of been hoping to run across a weapons locker or an abandoned stun gun, but no such luck, and knew she didn't have time to wait for the warden to take a trip to the loo or anything. She'd already considered and dismissed several more implausible tactics. The longer she crouched here, slowly going numb, the more it seemed there was only one option left. She just hoped she was quick enough to make it work.

Tegan slowly shifted her position to ease the discomfort in her legs. Her left foot slipped in its high heel and she kicked the side of the camera bank. The warden dropped his magazine and he straightened, looking around. _Mustn't make it look too easy. _Tegan flattened herself as much as possible against the large console.

"Someone there?" the warden asked gruffly.

Tegan felt her back begin to slide down the smooth metal casing, her heels incrementally slipping on the tile floor. She shifted one foot out, to get a better grip. The metal casing popped and shifted behind her back.

"Hey! You there!" the warden snapped.

Tegan quickly jerked her foot back. She winced, hearing the sound of the ponderous man removing himself from his seat, hoping he wasn't the trigger-happy sort. _Got me_. She looked up presently to see him standing over her, a hand resting on his sidearm and his shaggy eyebrows united in a single caterpillar of puzzlement over his beady eyes. Tegan lost her balance completely and landed on her backside, smacking the back of her head against the metal casing harder than she anticipated.

"Whaddya think you're doin' there, missy?" the warden asked.

Tegan pulled a guilty look. "Getting arrested?"

**o0o**

Nyssa heard the patter of approaching footfalls and hastily moved away from the door hinges, hiding the bent hairpin. Her heart first leapt, then sank, when Tegan walked into view, accompanied by the warden. "Oh, Tegan!" Nyssa rushed to the bars, gratified to note that Tegan at least appeared unmolested.

"Yous two know each other, eh?" the warden commented, tugging on Tegan's arm. Tegan scowled, and Nyssa felt a small stab of guilt. She couldn't help it that her instinctual reaction was to be honest.

Tegan tried half-heartedly to pull free of the man-mountain. "Yes, we know each other."

The warden looked intrigued. "A couple 'o lady burglars, eh? Don't see that every day!"

"We're not burglars, we came with a friend—" Nyssa tried to protest for what seemed the hundredth time.

"Yeah, yeah, save it for the Master. Look, little missies, I'm gonna put yous two together, all right?" the warden cut in lazily. "Save me havin' to clean out two cells. Don't yous try nothin' okay?"

Nyssa saw Tegan's attention snap to the warden as his other hand began to move towards his sidearm. She also noticed the subtle tensing of Tegan's posture. The warden had made a mistake. He was obviously right handed because his gun was holstered on his right side, and he was holding Tegan's left arm with his right hand, putting said holster right beside her. Nyssa met Tegan's eyes for a fraction of a moment and guessed Tegan's plan a second before it happened. As the warden's fingers touched his gun, Tegan reached around herself and slipped her smaller, nimbler fingers in first. She pulled the weapon up out of its holster, whipping it across the warden's fleshy face.

The warden let her go to cover his face, bending over just enough that Tegan was able to soundly clobber him on the head with the barrel of the gun. The warden let out a painful cry. Tegan grimaced and hit him with the gun again, much harder this time, if the loud _crack!_ it made was any indication. The warden slumped to the floor with a grunt and didn't move.

Amazed and impressed, Nyssa stared at the unconscious warden for a second, surprised to find herself feeling a bit envious of Tegan at the moment. She looked at Tegan, who was also staring at the warden with a dazed expression on her face. "Tegan..."

Tegan blinked, glanced at Nyssa, and then dropped to the guard's side, fishing in the man's pocket. She stood up again with a key card in her hand. "Ta da!" she announced, approaching the door.

"In the slot by the lever," Nyssa said, moving to stand behind the door. Seconds later, she heard it buzz and the door slid open, revealing Tegan on the other side. "Thank you," Nyssa said, aware how flat the words sounded. Her eyes were drawn to the gun Tegan still held in her other hand. She was holding it improperly, probably to avoid the unsightly blood smear on the barrel. "Good job," Nyssa had to admit.

**o0o**

Tegan grinned nervously, trying to still her trembling hands. "It's like I never left!" She hefted the gun, trying desperately to be nonchalant. "Think we should hang onto this?"

Nyssa offered a hand for it. "Definitely. The Master has the Doctor—"

"I know," Tegan interrupted quickly, giving her the gun and pocketing the key card. She looked up suddenly. "Wait—"

Nyssa got there first. "How do you know?"

"Me? I was there when they captured him. How do _you_ know?"

"Because he was with _me_ in the TARDIS," Nyssa pointed out confusedly. "He can't have been with both of us in different places at the same time. You must be mistaken."

Tegan almost laughed. "Believe me, I wish I were." But then, Tegan recalled the conversation she'd overheard between the Doctor and the guards. The guards had arrested Nyssa, _and someone else they were sure was the Doctor_. "Nyssa, what did the Doctor look like, last you saw him?"

Nyssa's cheeks appeared to flush for a moment, but only barely. "Well, normal, except that he was only wearing his trousers. Why?"

Tegan swallowed uncomfortably. "Because when I was with him…he didn't have any legs."

"What?"

Tegan didn't want to be blunt, but didn't know how else to explain. "There was a bit of an accident. The Doctor was...wounded. He sort of healed, but..."

Nyssa didn't appear nearly as shocked or dismayed as Tegan feared. "The hadronic energy field?"

"Yes, exactly. How—?"

"The Master told me. He told me the Doctor had been cut in half. The Doctor was certainly acting strange, I thought he had regenerated, but…" Nyssa's eyes glittered. "You're not trying to suggest—!"

Tegan heard a groan from behind. She turned to see the warden begin to sit up, clutching his head. Suddenly, Tegan found herself being pushed out of the way as Nyssa raised the stun gun and shot the warden square in the chest. He fell back onto the tile as a limp mass.

Tegan was about to congratulate Nyssa on her marksmanship when suddenly, the air filled with the loud wail of an alarm. "Oh, now what?" Tegan groused instead.

"Weapon discharge sensors! We have to get out of here, quickly!"

"I know where they've taken the Doctor, come on!" Tegan agreed swiftly, grabbing Nyssa's sleeve and tugging her back towards the main hallway.

**o0o**


	14. Chapter 14

The numbers flying across the screen made absolutely no sense to the Doctor, but he stared at them dutifully, as the Master had asked him to. Despite his earlier misgivings about her, he couldn't help missing Nyssa's presence. He knew she would have explained the numbers to him. The Master seemed much too impatient for that. But, as he stared at the swirling symbols, he began to relax. Something about them--perhaps their endless, constant fluctuations--was soothing to him. For the first time in his memory, he was able to stop his busy internal monologue, stop thinking, and just be. He barely noticed the Master press a button on the console and almost didn't hear his murmured "Contact."

But then he sensed something. A vague tickling on his scalp, where the electrodes had gone in. The tingle intensified and began to seep into his head. As he continued to stare at the symbols on the screen, they began to look less like numbers and more like a flurry of swarming insects. They dominated his vision until it seemed as though they were swarming right off the screen, through his eyes and into his brain, crawling through his hair, all over his skull, across every wrinkle in his brain. He could feel their many millions of tiny feet in his brain, until his entire head buzzed with them. For a second the Doctor began to panic, imagining the swarm filling every cell of his brain until it was forced to spill out of every orifice of his body and overwhelm him in their busy, busy chaos. The Doctor wanted to pull the cap off of his head, to jump from the chair and brush the overflow of symbols from his brain, but he couldn't move, couldn't even scream.

Then the swarm vanished.

The Doctor was left drifting in a calm, dark place. He couldn't sense any floor, or ceiling or walls. The darkness seemed to be an almost solid thing, surrounding him closely, but at the same time, he was aware of a vast distance all around him, and it sparked that same, discomforting feeling he'd had in the large room with the big computer terminal. Suddenly he sensed that he wasn't alone.

"Where am I?" he heard himself shout, even though he knew he hadn't actually spoken a single word.

"Merely inside your mind, Doctor. Rather a disappointing location, I'll admit."

It was the Master. But the Doctor wasn't sure how he knew that, since he hadn't actually heard the Master's voice.

"My mind?" The Doctor was confused. A mind was not a place one could walk into, like a room; it was a tiny thing, encased inside one's head, wasn't it?

"We are just beneath your level of consciousness. We must go much deeper than this if we are to find your missing memories, Doctor," the Master responded calmly.

The Doctor tried looking around in the darkness, but without a body or a sense of direction, he didn't know how to do it. "Where are you? Why can't I see you?"

"Because I am still within my own subconscious. The electrodes connect us together, allowing us to communicate our thoughts, but that is the extent of my interference in your mind, I can assure you. Now, you must go deeper into your subconscious."

The Doctor wasn't sure he understood exactly what the Master wanted him to do. "How do I do that?"

For just a fraction of a moment, the Doctor sensed a mixture of frustration and suspicion from the Master, as if it were background noise that just happened to be loud enough to get picked up, but abruptly it vanished. "Allow me to guide you," the Master said.

"All right."

**o0o**

The Master was quite surprised at how easily the Doctor surrendered to the machine. Blocked memories was one thing, but this innocent act was something else altogether, and the Master couldn't stop himself from wondering if his foe were deliberately going along with this as part of some plan. Either that, or the Doctor's mind had sustained very serious damage, indeed. The Master found himself hoping it was the former. His plan depended on it. Plus, there was no satisfaction quite like that of a hard-won victory.

He felt the console for the appropriate dial, and increased the level of synaptic transfer from the Doctor's mind to his, feeling his foe's mind come more sharply into focus with his own. _Like a puppet on a string_, he mused quietly.

**o0o**

The Doctor felt the Master's presence grow stronger, and begin to press up against him, squeezing him against the blackness. Just as he began to fear being crushed, he felt himself press through the darkness and pop out the other side, into a world of brightness and colour. Whirling all around him were brightly-coloured boxes of every size and shape imaginable, all glowing with an internal energy, and flying past him in rows and columns reminiscent of the numbers on the screen.

The Doctor couldn't sense his face, but imagined that he would be smiling. "It's beautiful!"

"It's your subconscious, where all your memories and experiences are stored," the Master explained.

"You mean all that stuff you say I've forgotten?"

"Yes."

The Doctor watched all the boxes with dizzying excitement. He couldn't wait to begin opening them up and seeing what kinds of strange wonders they held. His eye caught on one box in particular, a large red one that was moving much more slowly than the others. Clustered around it were several other larger, slower boxes, but none of them sparkled as alluringly as the red one. As he stared at it, it changed its direction and began to move towards him.

Suddenly, a small box came flying out of nowhere and opened, swallowing the Doctor before he quite realized it. Then he wasn't in the bright, box-filled place anymore, but back in the swirl of numbers.

"Remember this?" the Master asked.

"Yes. What is it for?"

Again, the Doctor sensed a curious spillover of frustration from the Master. "You know what it is. Find the rest of it."

The Doctor looked around the swirl, and found a smaller box being buffeted by the numbers. It opened and sucked him inside, taking him to a place full of static columns of numbers and symbols, but these made sense to him. "Numbers indicate quantity of objects," the Doctor recited automatically.

**o0o**

_No, you idiot, _the Master mentally snarled as he inadvertently absorbed the Doctor's concept of numbers. The fool was following the trail backwards! The Master tried to press the Doctor onward, but with the fundamental concept gone from the Doctor's mind, all the related knowledge and memories were now scattered, like marbles poured from a bag.

Angrily, the Master felt for the dial and increased the level of synaptic transfer. If the Doctor was trying to bluff him, it wouldn't work. But in the back of his own mind, in a part shielded from the machine, the Master began to have doubts about that. Why would the Doctor sacrifice a crucial mental construct so easily? He'd expected to run through layer after layer of unrelated and superficial memory engrams first. Basic concepts were usually the last things to be surrendered.

_Give me the equation, Doctor, _the Master demanded, feeling more of the Doctor's mind yield to his probing, information flowing into his mind as if from a faucet.

o0o 

The Doctor tried to shield himself somehow as the Master's commanding voice caused rows and columns of glowing boxes to suddenly fly at him, spill their contents and smash into each other, landing in a scattered array of coloured shards all around him. He was aware of a confused rush of images, sounds and smells, but each one was so fleeting that he couldn't keep track of any of them.

Before long, he began to realise that he didn't even know what the boxes were anymore.

Then, he realised that he didn't even know whose voice it was that was making all this happen, nor why he was so desperately resisting.

Then he couldn't even remember how it was he came to be in this strange, bright place where he didn't have a body or any control over what was going on.

All he knew was that it was vitally important that the voice not command that large, red box in the centre to open. Every time it came towards him, the Doctor mustered every ounce of control he had and pulled in the boxes around it, shielding it from the oppressive wind that was tearing through the once-neat arrangement of cubes. He didn't even know what was in the box, just that it was not to be forced open like this.

He had no words anymore, just a dizzying, terrifying sensation of growing smaller. Everything left of him was desperately pleading for it to stop.

o0o 

The Master struggled to keep his self-control as he absorbed string after string of pointless, redundant information. He was getting angry and impatient. He had the resolve to absorb the entirety of the Doctor's mind if need be, but hadn't really expected to have to. But the Doctor's mind made no sense; his thoughts seemed to consist of nothing more than the events of the last day, and lots of strange, idiot ruminations about boxes and spatial relationships. The sheer volume of minutiae in the Doctor's recent memories surprised the Master.

The Master plowed through all of it heedlessly, pressing the Doctor for more, finding his store of private thoughts, his doubts, fears and physical memories.

_Where is the rest of Omega's Equation?! _

He felt the Doctor's mind begin to crumble under the pressure. Information came in fits and starts, much of it only half-formed or seeming corrupted. The Master began to feel uneasy, but wasn't certain whether the feeling was his own, or the Doctor's. How could there be so little in the Doctor's mind? Not even amnesia could erase so many centuries of accumulated memories. Even if the contextual bridges were broken, the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes would remain for him to find and piece together later.

He jacked up the transfer dial a bit more, and finally felt the Doctor's resistance. The Master felt his mouth curl in a victorious grin. There was a barrier in the Doctor's mind, and pressing it felt like trying to force two identically charged magnets together. He kept slipping off the target, onto associated thoughts. The Doctor was out of ammunition. This was to be a battle of pure will power.

o0o 

The red box loomed large, until it surrounded the Doctor entirely. He scrambled for another box to open, and finding one last, tightly closed little box on the surface of the red one, he wrenched it open and flung it at the force pressing him into the red box. When the small box opened, he was plunged into a dark place where he saw the figure of a man standing, with fair hair and beige clothes. The man made a sound with his mouth, but it had no more meaning, as he'd forfeited his understanding of language already.

He flew right at the man, and saw him dissolve into nothing.

Red, everything glowed red.

Where was he? Who was he? Why did he feel so strange? Was he even alive? What was going on?

No! The red was opening up, plunging him into a swirl of colours and sounds, appearing before him before being violently ripped away.

o0o 

"Now, Doctor, your secret is mine!" the Master sighed to himself, at last feeling the Doctor's mental shield crack, fragment and fall away. He felt a deep twinge of satisfaction at beating his will. He always knew the Doctor was a posturing egoist, and at last the Master had proved it. It was just too bad that the Doctor wouldn't be in a position to appreciate that fact. The Doctor's defences melted away, and the Master sank joyously into his prize.

Wait.

The Master was briefly overwhelmed with a cascade of soft images, feelings and sounds relating to a young woman with thick, curly brown hair. The girl, Nyssa. The Master was confused. The Doctor's most prized memories, the thing he had literally sacrificed his entire being for, was Nyssa?

No, it had to be a mistake! The Master jacked up the transfer dial the whole way, opening his entire mind to the entirety of the Doctor's mind, and was flooded with Nyssa. Nyssa at the TARDIS console, appearing concerned; more powerfully, a memory of Nyssa in bed, smiling happily, connected to a very strong feeling of protectiveness and joy.

The Master was disoriented by the strength of these memories. The image of Nyssa smiling changed. She was no longer in bed, but in a garden, her face the rounder one of early childhood, her active little body clothed in airy pastels, running in bare feet towards him, her arms outstretched, a high, happy squeal emanating from her smiling face.

He sensed his hands reaching out to grab her, when the memory changed again: He was holding the child-Nyssa in his lap, and she was grabbing his robe in her pudgy fist, crying as he worked to extract a small splinter from her toe.

It changed again: little Nyssa standing stoicly by his side in the lush garden, but the bright, hazy colours were in sharp contrast to stab of sorrow and pain he felt as he held Nyssa's hand, watching the flames of his wife's funeral fire disappear into the air as birds taking flight, bearing her soul to the ether. But not all of it. _"Part of her will always be here, in you, Nyssa."_

Then another face appeared: Kassia. Smiling sweetly, as he had known her throughout her life, then, her eyes glowing with unnatural energy, her figure stiff, unyielding as she took life with the energy in her eyes. He felt the shock and horror of it all over again, as his pleas came to be hollow, her eyes turned on him, the thunderclap it caused in his head as he fought to keep his home, his family, his way of life from slipping…

Another memory: a mechanical device, tall and slim and exotic in its way, but not of Traken, standing innocuously in the Keeper's sanctum, emitting a benign, rhythmic click-click. A gift from the Doctor? Unsettled with grief only partly assuaged by the Keeper's transition, he felt his arm reach out towards it, to touch it, and how instead, he felt himself, mind and body, seized by a tremendously malevolent power; he remembered the pain and terror as it consumed him, rearranged his matter, how he felt himself lose control, felt his very being torn apart and compressed to the very edge of existence, feeling the teeth of another consciousness seize his memories, his knowledge, until there was nothing left but darkness…


	15. Chapter 15

The Master grabbed for the computer console, every nerve in his body traumatized by the wrenching physical memory, and shut off the synaptic transfer. But the flood of memories continued. He couldn't stop them. His body's painful memory of regeneration led to others: the heart-rending grief experienced at the beside of a dying wife; the wall of anxiety when his only daughter, the only thing he had left of his wife, had injured herself in a fall; the trepidation preceding his marriage to a wife much younger than himself; the twinge of suspicion every time he passed by the evil Melkur that, though inert, remained alive; his horror to discover that the creature contained an evil far greater than he could have possibly imagined...an evil that now resided within his own flesh, brutalized and taunted his daughter...

He clutched at the electrode cap on his head and fell from his chair, desperate to stop the confusion in his mind. His memories mixed with foreign ones that were still, somehow, his own. He broke into a cold sweat, staring at the room around him, seeing it through eyes that couldn't decide whether the place was familiar or strange. His gaze settled on the pathetic, half-clothed young man slumped in a chair beside him, and simultaneously pitied and loathed him, while also wondering who he was.

Then it triggered yet another set of memories, these obviously not his own, confused and bright, of Nyssa, unclothed, her eyes closed in rapturous release, her body pressed close. He caught his breath at the physical association of the memory, the powerful rush of nerve excitation. But there was no pleasure, no curiosity or surprise in it, only utter revulsion. He wrenched the electrode cap off his head, the sharp pain clearing his mind of everything but his own horror at what he'd just witnessed.

"Damn you, Doctor, she's my daughter!" he cried, pressing his forehead to the cold floor, feeling his grip on consciousness begin to weaken. In his state, he couldn't tell what was worse about it, that his sworn enemy had violated his daughter, or that his daughter had given herself willingly to his mortal enemy. Furious at the betrayal, he at first relished the thought of hurting her, punishing her for it, enjoying the look of pain and fear on her face.

But how could even consider such a thing? Nyssa was his child, and he...he was a kind, rational man. Nyssa was free to make her own choices, even if they disappointed him. He was certainly not a violent man. So where was this rage coming from? These images of violence, these clear memories of joyfully inflicting grievous injury to countless others, the reckless disregard for everything outside himself? They were not his, they were not even of Traken. They tasted of evil, of that hideous thing from within the creaking form of the Melkur, the thing that had touched his very soul and invaded him.

Yes, that was the only explanation. It was the evil, trying to seize control of him again. He could feel it writhing around in his head, confusing and disorienting him. He touched his bloodied scalp, fighting the swirls of disturbingly alien, dream-like thoughts and feelings, trying to reconcile two minds' worth of experience and knowledge (and snippets of a third) in one head. "I am Consul Tremas of the Traken Union, father to Nyssa, husband to Consul Kassia!" he insisted to the silent room, his voice unsteady.

_No, you're not. Tremas is dead_, a voice within his head demanded. _You're nothing, just a spare remnant of someone that was no match for my will. Nothing but a scattering of memories, disturbed by the synaptic transfer. Now stop cowing! _

He looked up at the slumped young man with the electrode cap. Was he unconscious or dead? He grabbed the chair and pulled his shaking legs under him and staggered over to check. He found a pulse, though it seemed weak and irregular. He paused there, staring at him, as his mind clouded once more. How could he be relieved that the man was alive, yet disappointed for the same reason?

Either way, the Master resolved, his mind finally beginning to clear, it didn't matter. The Doctor's mind was gone, and he'd not gotten what he was after. He noticed the monitor screen, still quietly scrolling its stream of mathematical symbols, and became overwhelmed with rage at his failure. He whirled around and raised his arm to strike at the comatose figure in anger, when he heard a distinctive crackling sound from the console.

Spying the hand radio, he checked his outburst and picked it up.

"Sir? Do you read, sir?"

"What is it?" the Master snarled into the speaker.

"You're not going to believe this, sir, but...I'm just outside, here, and I've got the Doctor with me," a reluctant voice explained. "Well, half of him, anyways, sir..."

Incompetence! The Master nearly dropped the radio in his haste. He turned on the security monitor and switched to the camera situated just beyond his door. Two officers, bearing a sizable crate between them. He zoomed in on the crate, and saw, much to his astonishment, the Doctor's fair head and sweatered shoulders protruding from the top of the crate. The crate was much too small to have housed the Doctor's lanky form. Adjusting the angle and zooming again, the Master had to admit that for once, his primitive underlings had described the situation completely accurately. The top half of the Doctor was drumming fingers on the top edge of the crate and looked generally annoyed, but very much alive and coherent.

The Master turned slowly to eye the limp figure in the chair and felt a throaty chuckle bubble up from his throat, marvelling at the Doctor's—and by extension, his own—astonishing luck. "Oh, Doctor, you are a fool," he sighed. Into the radio, he said simply, "Bring him in, Sergeant."

**o0o**

Tegan led Nyssa out of the prison level with a minimum of trouble, but the weapon discharge sensor had initiated some kind of lockdown that had knocked out the lifts. They'd been forced to seek out stairwells, and after running around with the Doctor on her back all that time, the pace was beginning to tire Tegan.

To take her mind off it, Tegan had taken the opportunity to tell Nyssa the incredible details of the Doctor's accident, partial recovery and subsequent discovery of the Master's true intentions. Well, as much as she knew of them, at any rate, and only when she had enough breath to talk. Nyssa had then filled her in on what she'd discovered, that the Doctor's accident seemed to have produced a duplicate Doctor with some kind of brain damage. Tegan had pressed for details, but Nyssa was strangely reticent. She seemed almost guilty about it, actually.

"…Did the Doctor say what Omega's Equation was for?" Nyssa asked instead.

"He said it was some sort of Time Lord recipe for blowing up stars. He mentioned something about an Eye of Harmony," Tegan recounted, glancing questioningly at Nyssa.

Nyssa's eyes widened disconcertingly, and she stopped short. "The Master is trying to create an artificial black hole?"

"More than one, according to the Doctor," Tegan responded, a bit envious of how quickly Nyssa had been able to piece it all together. _No wonder the Doctor was so quick to swan off and leave me behind at Heathrow_, Tegan thought grumpily. Nyssa was much more the Doctor's intellectual equal. "Anyway, he said he thought it was possible to shut the whole thing down if he could get to the Master's master computer.

"Where did the Doctor say his computer was?" Nyssa asked.

"Level twelve, junction three."

"Junction three?!" Nyssa exclaimed. Tegan felt her hand on her sleeve, and found herself pulled around to face Nyssa. "That's where the Doctor and I were taken when we were captured!"

Hearing footsteps, Tegan found herself pulled into a recessed doorway by Nyssa, who was holding the gun ready, as a pair of guards on patrol walked past the intersection.

"You mean it's the Master's headq—?" Tegan whispered urgently.

Nyssa unceremoniously clamped a hand over Tegan's mouth before she could finish, and kept it there until the guards had passed them by and were well out of earshot. "It had to be," Nyssa then answered. Her expression soured. "Which means we're going to have a terrible time trying to get in to stop him. Especially if he still has that awful TCE."

Tegan felt her stomach flip. She didn't want to consider that possibility. "Why would the Master want the Doctor to know exactly what he was up to?"

"Perhaps because he needs his help?" Nyssa speculated, still appearing lost in troubled thoughts.

"Fat chance the Doctor would ever give him that."

"Exactly. Hence the deception. You said the Doctor suspected he was being lured into a trap."

Tegan felt another stab of annoyance at Nyssa's profundity. "Oh, great," she grumbled, seeing immediately where this was going. The Master had two favourite activities in these circumstances: torturing people for information, and killing them when they proved unhelpful. Neither bode well for the Doctor. "Poor Doctor! I don't even want to think what the Master's been doing to him."

"To _them_," Nyssa corrected her softly.

Tegan shivered. "Oh, right! Though, didn't you say yours was, well…not the full quid?"

"Sorry?"

"Acting a bit daft?" Tegan rephrased.

Nyssa recoiled a little and looked away uncomfortably. "Not quite," she said, again in that soft, subdued tone.

"What's the matter?" Tegan finally had to ask. She'd seen Nyssa look distraught before, but never _guilty_.

"I'm just worried about him," Nyssa explained, unconvincingly, to Tegan. Tegan prepared to argue, when Nyssa added, in an obvious effort to change the subject, "Just think, if the Master intended to force the Doctor to help with his calculations, then I doubt he'd have got far with _my_ Doctor. More than likely, by now the Master has…" Nyssa closed her eyes and swallowed, unable to finish.

She didn't have to.

"Oh, don't exaggerate," Tegan muttered, trying not to think like that, and afraid what would happen to her resolve should Nyssa start getting bleak. "C'mon, the coast is clear." She slipped out of the doorway, trying to remember where the next stairwell was.

Nyssa fell into step behind her. "I don't think we should try to break into the Master's headquarters like this. It's too risky. We'd be better off finding some other way to shut down his computer. If we rush in, it might just motivate the Master to do something truly terrible. If he hasn't already."

"Best not to think like that," Tegan advised quickly, trying to focus on the problem at hand, "We can't see what's going on, and speculating about it will only make it seem worse."

Nyssa suddenly gripped Tegan's shoulder like a vise, pulling her up short. "That's it! That's what we do!"

Tegan turned round, surprised by the wild-eyed look on Nyssa's face. "What, Nyssa?"

"The Master has this whole base wired for surveillance. I saw his monitor screen when we were first captured. If I can get into the system and reverse the feed, we might be able to see what's going on! There was a surveillance link up in the prison level, wasn't there?"

"We don't have time to rush all the way down there, and then try to find somewhere to hack…" Tegan began to respond, developing an idea. "The transmitter room!" she exclaimed suddenly.

Nyssa appeared puzzled for just the briefest second, before understanding lit on her face. "Of course! The master controls are all there, computer systems and surveillance! That's brilliant, Tegan! Once I access the video feed, then I could know for sure if I turn off the right computers."

"Kill two birds with one stone," Tegan agreed smugly. _See? Aliens don't have a monopoly on brainpower, Nyssa_. "You can do that, right?"

"It's worth a try. Can you find the transmitter room from here?"

Tegan scoffed. By this point, she could probably draw up her own detailed schematic of the base! "Piece of cake!"

"Then after you," Nyssa deferred eagerly.

Tegan set off on her new course, her fatigue forgotten. "Hang on, Doctor, we're going to rescue you!" she announced bravely. "Both of you," she quickly amended herself, glancing at Nyssa.

Nyssa appeared to colour slightly with embarrassment, but nodded firmly.

When the situation was less urgent, Tegan resolved to pester Nyssa for those details.


	16. Chapter 16

The Doctor was feeling downright battered by the time the Sergeant and the Corporal stopped in front of a set of blast-shielded doors on the twelfth floor, third junction, bearing his crate between them. A security alarm had locked out all of the lifts (probably thanks to Tegan), giving the Doctor the frightening experience of being nearly dropped down four flights of stairs at one point when the two guards lost their grip on his crate. Fortunately, he'd been able to convince them to take the handcuffs off earlier, allowing him to grab the banister and save himself. After surviving the stairs, the guards then took no less than three breaks, which involved unceremoniously dropping the crate to the floor so they could rest their arms. The Doctor could feel a knot rising on his forehead where he'd been thrown against the side of the crate on one such occasion.

As the two guards again plonked him on the floor so that the Sergeant could get out his radio and announce their arrival, the Doctor grabbed the wooden sides of the box to stabilise himself, only to collect a splinter in his left palm. He jerked his hand back, sucking on the injured finger briefly, suppressing an angry growl. Dealing with the Master successfully required a calm, centred mind. That would be difficult enough to achieve by having to meet with the Master as a captive, but the Doctor was now irritated and in pain as well. Plus, there was the small matter his not yet having any kind of plan for disabling the Master's computer program.

No time to dwell on that, though.

The blast doors slid open and the Doctor grabbed hold of the crate as the guards once more awkwardly lifted him up and carried him through the doorway into a darkly lit control centre. The Master stood in its centre, in front of a chair, next to a sizeable computer bank. Another chair, above which hung a nasty-looking electrode cap, was on the Master's other side. The Doctor noticed a bundle of wires connected the two chairs to each other, and to the computer bank. He also noticed (sickeningly) that the chair behind the Master was occupied by someone wearing a pair of red-striped trousers. The Master was standing in front, effectively blocking the Doctor from getting any more details, but the Doctor's stomach sank. Against all odds, the Doctor was beginning to suspect he'd been right all along about his trousers running off—with a duplicate body inside them. A duplicate body that appeared quite still.

"At last!" the Master greeted him. Despite his predatory grin and gleeful tone, the Doctor noticed that the Master looked decidedly ragged. His normally well-groomed brown hair was dishevelled, and streaks of dried blood were traced partway down his forehead. "Strap him down," the Master ordered the Sergeant and the Corporal.

The two complied, looking none too pleased about the task, as they lifted the Doctor out of the crate and positioned him on the vacant chair. From this closer vantage point, the Doctor saw that the needle points of the electrode cap still contained trapped bits of hair and droplets of dried blood. As the guards snapped restraints around his wrists, the Doctor counted the number of needles and their arrangement and came to the only likely conclusion as to their purpose, which also explained the Master's ravaged scalp: he was using an old-style Remote Synaptical Kinesis machine. So that's how he planned to get the rest of Omega's Equation!

"Leave us," the Master commanded to the two guards, who appeared only too happy to get out of the room. When the door was safely closed behind them, the Master gazed down at him and grinned again. "Welcome, Doctor!"

"'Said the spider to the fly,'" the Doctor answered, composing himself carefully. "I have to admit, you've outdone yourself this time, building all of this just so you could steal my knowledge of Omega's Equation."

"I'm glad you can finally appreciate my genius."

"Appreciate it? I'm almost flattered. I can't remember the last time anyone went to so much effort to kill me," the Doctor responded, smiling back at him coldly.

The Master's expression darkened. "Except in this case, your death is only a bonus. Your mind is the real prize, Doctor, and as you can see, I'm well equipped to take as much of it as I need to."

**o0o**

Nyssa held the gun, ready to fire, and looked through the porthole window of the security door. The room beyond was huge and domed with the concave dish the Master had no doubt used to broadcast his duplicitous signal. She immediately spotted the massive computer control console suspended in the middle of the cavernous space, the hub in a web of deserted catwalks. It was just as Tegan had described it.

"Well, it looks clear," she said, preparing to open the door. She felt Tegan lean behind her, looking over her shoulder.

"No force fields?" Tegan asked worriedly.

"I don't see any," Nyssa shrugged, her stomach flipping. There was every likelihood that the force fields would appear the moment she and Tegan dared to cross the catwalk, and there was no way to know whether or not anyone had repaired the circuit that the Doctor had damaged. It was a gamble, but there was no other option. She reached towards the door control, her hand hovering reluctantly. She looked back at Tegan, hesitant to make a decision that could lead to both of their deaths. "We should run?"

Tegan nodded soberly, much to Nyssa's relief. "Let's do this."

Nyssa swallowed and pressed the door control. As soon as the door was open wide enough, she bolted for the nearest catwalk, hearing the clatter of Tegan's heels right behind her. As soon as she touched the railing on the catwalk, a loud klaxon began to echo loudly through the massive chamber, filling Nyssa's veins with panic-charged adrenaline. Up ahead, a shimmering force field blocked the rear catwalk from the central platform.

"Hurry!" Tegan cried, shoving Nyssa urgently from behind as another force field snapped into place, then another, barring the catwalks in an orderly, rapid, anti-clockwise direction around the central platform. "We're not going to make it!" Tegan predicted breathlessly.

_Yes we are._ Nyssa dashed madly for the platform in a bold game of chicken with the security system, praying to the Keeper that her timing was accurate. But even if Tegan was right, Nyssa owed it to the Doctor to try for it, even if it cost her life. He'd done as much for her. And anyway, what more did she have to lose?

The force field blocking the next catwalk over blazed into existence. _Now!_ With a fraction of a second left, Nyssa leapt for the console, feeling Tegan's arms wrap around her legs as she left the ground. "Nyssa, don't!"

They tumbled together onto the central platform, rolling into the console's solid base, as the force field zapped the air a hair's breadth behind Tegan's heels.

Nyssa lay where she fell for a moment. She could see that a panel on the base had been dislodged, exposing a bundle of wires, one of which was clearly disconnected. Her breath caught as the realization of what she'd just done sank in. Tegan looked just as shaken, but gallantly climbed to her feet, dusting herself off.

Nyssa took a stabilising breath and sat up, glancing at Tegan. "Are you all right?" she asked needlessly.

Tegan nodded, wild-eyed. "That was close," she needlessly answered.

Nyssa stood up and turned to look at the console. Whilst in the TARDIS, she'd had time to scan the base and study how it was all wired up, and had little difficulty finding the circuits for the video surveillance system.

The rest of the security force fields snapped into place, effectively sealing them off from the catwalks as well as any potential guards that came after them. Still, Nyssa handed the gun to Tegan. Tegan nodded wordlessly and took it, turning to eye the catwalks. Mercifully, the klaxon stopped, plunging the massive transmitter room into a loud silence, broken only by the faint buzzing of the force fields.

Nyssa did the best she could to shake off her remaining uneasiness and removed the panel protecting the video circuits. What she saw relieved her concerns considerably. The system was surprisingly uncomplicated. There was a monitor screen built-in, and once she had access to the central feed, she'd have to search through all the feeds to find the information stream from the camera in the Master's control centre and hardwire it into the display. She reached into the mess of boards and live wires carefully. "If only we still had the sonic screwdriver," she lamented.


	17. Chapter 17

The Doctor locked gazes with the Master, testing his resolve. "What makes you so certain that I know the rest of the equation?" he asked.

"Don't attempt to distract me with trifles, Doctor! All of Gallifrey is aware of your battle with Omega's mind those many years ago, and with your combined telepathic abilities it was impossible that you could have defeated him without assimilating some small portion of his mind. Why do you think he later instructed Hedin to choose your bio-data extract from the Matrix?"

The Doctor swallowed uncomfortably. He'd forgot how shrewd and intelligent the Master was, in spite of all his posturing. The Doctor had never once thought Omega's selection had been a coincidence, but had hoped to keep the whys of it strictly under wraps. The High Council was prepared to execute him for even being Omega's target; no doubt they'd hesitate even less if they knew the Doctor was going around with bits and pieces of Omega's demented genius already in his head, a fact that the Doctor himself hadn't realized until long after his first tangle with the legendary Gallifreyan stellar engineer, and one which he'd been very diligent in keeping to himself.

"Omega ultimately failed to destroy my mind on both those occasions. You won't succeed, either. Especially not with an RSK machine," he predicted, masking his trembly interior with a commanding tone. The truth was, in his present condition of fatigue and ill health the Doctor didn't know how well he could hold up against the Master under these circumstances. Fortunately, if the Master's appearance was anything to go by, he didn't seem to be in top form, either.

The Master chuckled. "I think you'll find that you're gravely mistaken. You see, I've been practicing."

**o0o**

"I think I've got it!" Nyssa exclaimed, as the monitor screen resolved into a grainy view of what had to be the Master's computer. "Yes, I found it!" she confirmed, tweaking the visual properties until the picture sharpened, revealing the Master standing between two chairs. Both chairs were occupied, but Nyssa's eyes were immediately drawn to one in front of the Master. Her hand flew to her mouth in revulsion and shock. "Tegan, you were right. That's awful!"

Tegan crowded next to her to get a look at the screen. "I warned you," she said simply, eyes glued to the screen. "Can you get any audio?"

"I'm trying," Nyssa answered, finding and connecting the appropriate wires as quickly as possible without shocking herself. "There."

"I don't hear anything."

"Find a volume switch!"

"Right."

_"I've been practicing,"_ the Master's voice crackled over the speaker grille, sending shivers up and down Nyssa's spine. Even after all this time, she couldn't hear that voice without being shocked by the terrible things it said, an instrument of enlightenment and peace now used for unrepentant evil. She stared sightlessly into the open panel of wiring, building up the courage to look.

_"What have you done?"_ the Doctor's voice demanded.

"Oh!" Tegan yelped.

Nyssa looked at the screen and stopped breathing. The Master had stepped aside, revealing the person on the chair behind him. It was the other Doctor. Her Doctor. He looked limp and still. _"Your accidental duplicate had the pleasure of testing my machine first. He may not have had the information I was looking for, but he did help me determine just how much power it will take to break you,"_ the Master explained nonchalantly.

Nyssa stared at him, feeling pressure build behind her eyes. Please, it can't be what it looks like! She was vaguely aware of Tegan turning to look at her, wide-eyed.

"Oh, Nyssa—"

Feeling her chest heave with a sob, Nyssa choked it back and wrenched her eyes away, back to the circuitry. "There's still time...to save the real Doctor. I need you to watch the monitor carefully; you'll need to tell me when I've found the right circuit," Nyssa interrupted quickly. _Concentrate!_

**o0o**

The Doctor stared at his other self in absolute horror. There were no words in any vocabulary that could articulate just how wrong all this was. Half-generates were all but unheard of outside the stories of Rassilon's early experiments with regeneration technology. What accounts did exist usually described misshapen, disorganized piles of body parts that typically lived just long enough to be put out of their misery; the monsters in the stories Prydonian prefects told to the freshman class on stormy Gallifreyan nights. Poor Nyssa had been stuck for hours dealing with a half-generate she must have believed was actually him! A perfectly understandable error, the Doctor had to admit, eyeing his other self critically. The half-generate couldn't have been more his exact duplicate if it had tried.

The Master chortled gleefully. "Shocking, isn't it? You look quite beside yourself, Doctor."

The Doctor was too shaken to answer immediately, but managed to send the Master the most venomous glare he could muster. The man was truly a sociopath.

The Master met his gaze with a mild sneer and walked over to the half-generate's chair, flipping a switch that retracted the electrode cap with a painful-looking jerk. The body gave no other sign of response. Though, as the Doctor watched closely, he thought he saw the thing's chest rise and fall slightly with breath. Yes, it was still breathing. Undoubtedly, though, it was completely brain-dead. The Master also loosed the half-generate's wrists from the bindings and then unceremoniously shoved the body onto the floor with a callousness that made the Doctor's stomach twist. The Master whipped out a kerchief and wiped the needlepoints of the electrodes before sitting down. He reached towards the computer console and pulled out a drawer that was actually a disguised control panel.

"It's time to begin, Doctor," the Master said simply.

The Doctor felt his heart begin to pound, and he found himself fighting the restraints even though he knew he couldn't get loose. He wasn't ready for this. His mind was swirling with troubled thoughts and fears, and he needed to be calm and centred if he was going to resist the Master without finishing up brain damaged.

The Master hit a switch, and the Doctor gasped in silent agony as the electrode cap clamped down on his head and the electrode needles began to drill their way into his head, making his whole skull vibrate with teeth-chattering force.

**o0o**

"Hurry, Nyssa!" Tegan squeaked, digging her fingers into her own scalp as she tried not to watch the Doctor become impaled on the Master's hideous machine.

"I'm working on it!" Nyssa snapped back.

"Work faster," Tegan pleaded. She felt so useless, standing here and watching whilst Nyssa rewired circuitry and the Doctor went mind-on-mind with the Master. Her hold on the gun tightened as she looked around the large room. If only the force field wasn't in her way, she could run to the control room, bust down the door and give the Master what he had coming. She could see it in her mind's eye; blowing the door to bits, taking aim, _"This is for my Aunt Vanessa!"_ and...

"Ow!"

The monitor screen suddenly went dark, and Tegan whirled around in time to see sparks fly and Nyssa tumble back from the panel, stopping just short of the fizzing force field. "Are you okay?"

Nyssa got up and went back to look inside the panel, appearing a little shaken. "Oh, no! It's shorted! He's booby-trapped the master computer circuits. That never even occurred to me!"

"Can you fix it?" Tegan asked frantically, feeling blind already without the monitor feed. Nyssa covered her mouth with her hands, as if she were about to cry. _Don't fall apart now, Nyssa, if you go, then I'll go_, Tegan thought, waiting desperately.

Nyssa drew a deep breath, and a look of calm determination came over her features. "I believe I can," she said, reaching inside the panel again, "I'll have to go at it indirectly and bypass the short. Let me see if I can at least restore the security feed..."

Tegan watched Nyssa's nimble fingers fly along the coloured strings of wires, stripping, rewiring, looping and disconnecting them at a pace that made Tegan wonder if Nyssa weren't just acting randomly. But a long, tense moment later...

_"You're playing with fire! Even if you get the equation, if your calculations aren't precise to the last millisecond before implementation, all you'll get is a massive supernova and a shockwave so massive nothing would survive it—not even you!"_ the Doctor's voice boomed through the transmitter room, making Tegan and Nyssa both jump.

"It's hard-wired into the main audio system," Nyssa explained quickly, her fingers barely pausing. "So I ought to be able to access the master computer..."

"Just hurry up, please," Tegan muttered tensely, "I don't want to hear the Doctor die in surround sound!"

**o0o**

The sergeant and the corporal pulled up short as the Doctor's disembodied voice echoed through the corridor:

_"Why do you think Omega was lost in the Eye of Harmony to begin with? Not even he got it right!"_

"Uh, Sarge...?"

The sergeant shushed the corporal quickly as the Master's voice thundered out next:

_"That may be, but once I have your mind, I'll have the added benefit of seeing where our illustrious ancestor went wrong, and with this base, I'll have a secure facility from which to observe the experiment. Now calm yourself, Doctor, or this will be very uncomfortable. Prepare for contact."_

_"Are you really prepared to destroy this entire planet, to genocide the population and quite possibly even sacrifice yourself for this one last, desperate grab for power?" _the Doctor demanded.

The sergeant looked at the corporal, and saw the other man return his alarmed look. "He's gonna _what_?" the corporal exclaimed, "What is this, some kind of prank?"

"By the Goddess, will you shut it?" the sergeant snapped impatiently, listening as his long-simmering suspicions began to be confirmed.

_"What is a planet, but a random assemblage of atomic particles obeying the arbitrary structural laws of the universe? The same with these people,"_ the Master's inimitable voice responded smoothly. _"They are a means to an end, they have served their purpose to me. Between you and me, I've only tolerated them this long to lull their government into complete indifference as to my true plans. Dazzle them with enough talk of economic growth and technological advancement and they'll gladly walk right off the cliff's edge. By the time I've stripped your mind of the necessary knowledge and these primitives see their sun implode, it'll be too late for them, and I'll be long gone from this doomed little sphere."_

The sergeant felt his blood turn icy cold as the words sunk in. The Master was an insane, genocidal maniac! "I knew it!" the sergeant proclaimed grimly. Just then, his radio beeped. "Sergeant Crayler."

_"Are you hearing this?"_ the captain's voice crackled over the line.

Sergeant Crayler gave the corporal a meaningful look. "I am, sir. What's going on?"

_"Someone hacked into the security feed from the Master's command centre. We've traced it to the transmitter room. It's got to be the Doctor's female assistants. They must be trying to rescue the Doctor."_

"What would you like me to do about it, sir?"

_"As I recall, I think we still owe them a favour, Sergeant,"_ the captain remarked.

Sergeant Crayler allowed a slow smile to creep across his face. "Understood, Captain. Crayler out." He put his radio away and grabbed the corporal's sleeve, pulling him into a trot down the corridor.

"The Master's back that-a-way, sir," the corporal pointed out bemusedly.

"Behind code-locked, blast-shielded doors. We're going to need that moon-buster again!"


	18. Chapter 18

The Master watched the Doctor writhe in agony and smirked. Who was he trying to fool? His words were nothing more than a substitute for a painful scream. The Doctor was trapped and knew it, so he was stalling, which meant he must doubt his ability to ward off the Master's mind in the machine. A promising sign, indeed.

"Listen to yourself, you're grasping at straws. This stinks of sheer desperation and you know it!" the Doctor proclaimed shrilly, wincing as the electrodes did their work.

Desperation? The Master stared at the Doctor with hard, icy-cold eyes, feeling rage boil up from inside him. "I thrive on desperation, Doctor! Our many encounters over the years have made me so!" Why else would he risk the destruction of the universe itself to rid himself of the Doctor, who had nearly cost him every single one of his lives? What other reason did he have to wait decades on Traken for the right moment, only to end up pouncing upon the nearest chunk of flesh to buy more time?

_You brought it on yourself_, that voice deep in his mind reminded him, starting to gain strength once more. The Master hit himself in the head. "Shut up!" he snapped, trying to drown it out. He wasn't going to lose control again. Not when victory was so close! He tossed his head and glared at the Doctor. The Doctor was eyeing him slightly suspiciously, which only made him more impatient to be rid of him. "Enough of this small talk, Doctor. Prepare for contact," he growled, preparing to stab his head yet again with the electrodes.

"Don't do it," the Doctor said. "You'll have to kill me to get what you're after, and if you do that the Time Lords will be sure to intervene. You can still stop."

The Master was surprised to hear a measure of sympathy creep into the Doctor's voice. He looked at him again, and found the Doctor studying him with those small, guileless, piercing blue eyes of his. Suddenly, he was very aware of the body at his feet. He broke gazes with the Doctor, trying to bury the thought of that vapid half-generate who was too simple to realize when he was in danger, whose mind he'd swallowed up with barely any hesitation. He'd been an innocent, just like Tremas. Fatal curiosity doomed them both.

_And may well destroy me_, he thought, perplexed that he was suddenly feeling cautious.

Or was he? Probably just more residual mental confusion, a side-effect of the RSK machine that would be more than justified when the rest of the equation was safely stored away in his own mind. He reached towards the controls, but a strange feeling made him stop. He didn't want to subject himself to that electrode cap again. The damn thing just hurt too much. "Stop? With victory at the tip of my fingers?" he said aloud, needing to overcome his sudden cowardice, to convince himself of his motives.

"Yes, stop," the Doctor continued to urge passionately, "For once, Master, do what you know is right."

His hand hovered over the controls, his mind in turmoil. Why was he doing this at all? He had a life, his liberty, why couldn't he be content with that? He'd known contentment once, so very long ago on Traken, his world in harmony, his people happy and at peace...with his wife, his daughter. _Nyssa._

Suddenly, those disturbing, foreign memories bubbled up again, and he felt his hearts squeeze with righteous anger. Turning to the Doctor, he spewed, "Hypocrite! You dare to lecture me about right and wrong when only hours ago you took my daughter to your bed? She's only a child!" He turned back to his control panel and pressed the button, feeling the electrodes jam back into place on his head. "Enough talk!" He grabbed hold of the dial and cranked it. "Contact!"

**o0o**

The angry truth reverberated through the transmitter room in words and voice too surreal to be believed. Nyssa panicked and wrenched out the audio feed. The speakers screeched loudly in death, and both she and Tegan covered their ears until it died down.

"What was _that_?" Tegan asked.

"I need to concentrate," Nyssa answered sharply, eyes glued to the mass of circuitry, the confused tangle of wires mirroring the chaotic tangle of thoughts in her own mind. She could feel her cheeks burn with shame, but it was the way the words had been spoken that distressed her more. She'd rarely heard her father's voice raised in anger, but she remembered it instinctively. She felt as though she'd just travelled back in time without the TARDIS. But at the same time, she knew it couldn't be real. The Master had pretended such a thing before, and must be doing so again. Nyssa furiously blinked back tears. Oh, how she hated him, and how she wished she could put it all behind her and stop caring.

"What did he mean, Nyssa?" Tegan asked over her shoulder

"Tegan, please, there's no time!"

"But—?"

"It's not your problem."

Tegan was silent for a moment. "All right," she said, "Lower the force field."

Nyssa turned to stare at Tegan. "What?"

The young human's face was locked in a kind of fierce determination that Nyssa hadn't quite seen before. This wasn't the out-of-her-depth airhostess that grudgingly tripped along in the TARDIS; this was Tegan Jovanka, here on her own terms and ready to fight. "I'm going to try to distract the Master."

Nyssa couldn't help but be deeply incredulous. "But the guards and the TCE—?"

Tegan rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to do anything stupid, I'm just going to cause a distraction. The Doctor's always encouraging us to play to our strengths, so I am." She hefted the gun and smiled bravely. "Mouth on legs with a gun! At least I might be able to buy you and the Doctor some more time. Anyway, there's nothing I can do for you here."

Nyssa spared a second to think it over. It was a solid plan. She turned back to the original panel that the Doctor had pulled apart, found the right connection and pulled it. The array of force fields fizzled out with a loud buzz. She met Tegan's gaze steadily.

Tegan nodded in understanding. "I'll be careful. Wish me luck!"

Nyssa nodded and watched Tegan turn and sprint down the catwalk to the door. Pushing her emotions aside, Nyssa turned back to the open panel and resumed her search for the computer circuits.

**o0o**

The Doctor was suddenly blinded by a darkness that was also somehow inexplicably bright, and his head roared with a loud buzzing. He felt like he was in free fall, and for a moment didn't even know which way was up. He was aware that he was screaming, but he didn't seem to be making a sound. Then he landed, as abruptly as if he'd struck concrete, but felt nothing. And everything was still and silent. _The RSK machine_, he realised. Slowly, all around him, things began to materialize out of the void until he recognised where he was: a mental construct of the TARDIS library.

"That makes sense," he murmured approvingly to himself.

It was dark, murky and even as he stood there, he could sense the bookshelves shifting and rearranging themselves as his thoughts settled from the assault of the Master's machine. He walked over to the nearest bookshelf and looked at the row of spines facing him, reading the titles: _Things Sarah Said to Me._ _Things Jo Said to Me._ _Things Susan Said to Me. _And lastly, _Exotic Tea Recipes._ The Doctor lifted an eyebrow at that. "What are _you_ doing here?" he asked the tome curiously, pulling it from the shelf. Glancing down, he saw another misplaced book, _Sontarans_, jutting out from amongst a collection of technical manuals. He tutted and picked it up. "I really must have a word with the librarian about the state of this place," he quipped to himself. He stacked the tea book on top and opened it up randomly, smiling in surprise as his eyes found the entry for Raxicalican black tea. He remembered it had a very unique flavour, but thought he'd forgotten how to make it. He was quite pleased to realise that he'd only misplaced the recipe.

"Doctor!" the Master called from behind.

The Doctor startled and set the books on top of the shelf and slowly turned around. The figure that peaked out at him from the opposite aisle confused him for just a moment. It was the Master, but his hair and beard were long and grey and he was clothed in a dark robe. The Doctor suddenly realised he was holding another book and looked down at it. The slim book had one word on the cover: _Traken._ The Doctor looked back at the man in sudden realization. "Tremas!"

Tremas put a finger to his lips urgently and darted conspiratorially across the aisle to join him. "Yes, Doctor," Tremas whispered quickly.

The Doctor nodded as the pieces fell into place, however unlikely they seemed. "So you _do _exist! Remarkable," the Doctor effused. Catching himself, he cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Tremas, it's just that I had assumed when the Master took you over that he'd rather destroyed you in the process, save for a scattering of old memories. I sensed the Master was suffering from some kind of mental confusion. That's the trouble with RSK machines; they're quite good at stirring up problematic neural engrams. Or, in this situation, a bad case of multiple personality."

"You!"

The Doctor and Tremas turned to see the Master, resplendent in his goatee and black velvet, standing in the aisle, his eyes wide with rage as he pointed a gloved hand at Tremas. "Get away from him!" the Master demanded.

The Doctor prepared to move between the two, but Tremas stepped forward. "You have no right to be here," Tremas addressed the Master calmly.

The Master sneered. "You have no power over me, old man. You're nothing but an empty shell, and I can will you away with the blink of an eye!"

"You may have kept me a hostage, but you lacked the ability and the strength to kill me. I've stayed hidden in my prison for so long, and now that I'm free, it's time you were brought to justice. It's time I avenged the wrong you've done to this universe. To" —Tremas' voice broke slightly—"to my daughter. This ends now, Master. One way or another."

The Master tossed back his head and laughed. "What have I to fear from an echo? Now stop distracting me, the Doctor and I have business to attend to." With a confident swagger, the Master closed the distance between himself and Tremas, clearly intending to stroll right past him to the Doctor.

As soon as he approached, Tremas lunged at the Master, knocking him back into one of the bookshelves, and the pair toppled to the floor. Tremas grabbed the Master by the collar and landed a few smart punches to the Master's face before the Master got his foot up against Tremas' chest and pushed him off, sending Tremas stumbling back into the opposite bookshelf. With an enraged growl, the Master charged him, wrapping his gloved hands around Tremas' neck and throttling him. Tremas grabbed the Master's arms and pushed back, trying to pry his hands off.

Deeply surprised by this sudden turn of events, the Doctor rushed in and grabbed the Master around the waist, helping Tremas to pull him off. The Master stumbled but caught himself in time to come back, shoving the Doctor out of the way. "Stay out of this, Doctor!" he growled, tackling Tremas as Tremas had tried to slip away down the aisle. The pair struggled, and rolled into the shelves, sending books toppling to the floor and down the aisles. The Doctor felt the disarray as a sudden, painful twinge in his forehead that knocked him to his knees. Disoriented, he looked up at the pair of combatants, and the greyed one matched his gaze.

"Go, Doctor! Go while you have the chance!" Tremas ordered. As the Master's hands tightened their grip on his neck, he just managed to choke out, "Take care of Nyssa!"

_Yes, Nyssa. And Tegan!_

The Doctor sensed the floor beneath his feet begin to skitter and slide, like a cloth being pulled out from under him. The whole room appeared to tilt, and the bookshelves emptied themselves in a great avalanche of vellum and parchment as the shelves and walls began to flow towards a reinforced metal door at the end of the room. The Doctor shielded himself from the wave of books that poured down around him and watched as Tremas and the Master continued to grapple, pulled towards the door. No, not pulled, pushed. The Doctor realised that his mind was reacting reflexively to the onslaught by repelling the foreign consciousnesses. The door was the link connecting his mind to the Master's. The whole construct slid away, through the solid metal door, taking Tremas and the Master with it. It then clanged shut loudly and dissolved into nothing.

Doctor was left sitting alone in a void amid a massive spillage of pages and broken bindings, the complete silence and complete nothingness around him peaceful and calm. He reached down and picked up one bent volume, its pages badly crumpled. As he tried to open it, several torn pages fell out. The title simply read, _Today._ "Oh. That can't be good," he commented.

Suddenly, a bright flash of light blasted him from behind and his ears filled with the sounds of a loud explosion. He was blasted by a heat wave. The light grew brighter and brighter, and the sound louder and louder, until…

**o0o**

The Master's eyes shot open as something struck his brain like a massive brick and he found himself no longer in the library, but seated in a chair in a small room. He instinctually grabbed at the transfer dial to see what went wrong. It was still turned up the whole way. He twisted it both ways to no effect, feeling panic bubble up inside. Why had he lost the connection? He looked up at the computer monitor above him. It was dark and blank. Someone had cut the power. "No!" he growled, quickly extracting the electrodes in his head and leaping to his feet.

Just then, the wall opposite him exploded. A wave of heat and debris blew inward. He ducked for protection, his world in complete confusion. When he looked again, there was a massive hole in the wall, filled with people ranged around a massive gun with its barrel smoking. They had their blasters drawn on him. Where was he? This certainly wasn't Traken.

"Master, I order you to surrender!" one of them shouted.

"What? Who—?" he tried to protest gently, eyeing the assortment of computer equipment surrounding him. He saw the body at his feet, and the other (well, half of one) in the chair in front of him, his head wired up hideously. He felt blood trickling down his face from several deep wounds on his own head and began to worry. "What happened? What have I done?"

"Surrender, now!" the guard barked.

The Master suddenly snapped back to his senses. These fools thought they could turn things round on him, did they? Well, theirs was a fatal folly, they didn't realise how adept he was at developing back up plans.

"All right, all right! Allow me, please, to turn off my equipment before anyone gets hurt," he pleaded, weighing his voice with conciliatory defeat. He stood still and watched the guard's reaction.

The guard eyed him cautiously, eyed the machinery, and then nodded curtly. "Keep your hands where I can see them."

"Of course," the Master agreed, reaching over to his control panel. Quickly, he slipped his hand into the drawer underneath and pulled out his Tissue Compression Eliminator. Before the guards could react, he turned it on them and activated it. The guards screamed as they suddenly glowed with an unnatural energy and were reduced to small lumps of flesh and fabric and polymers. The Master spared himself a satisfied grin. That wide-beam setting paid for itself every time. He turned back to the Doctor and checked him for a pulse. Good, still alive, just a little mentally shocked. Fine. All he needed to do was run to the transmitter room, restore the power, and kill whoever it was that cut the flow. "Don't go anywhere, Doctor, I'll be right back," he remarked, patting the side of the Doctor's unconscious face before ducking out the whole and heading off to the nearest lift.


	19. Chapter 19

Nyssa's hands shook as she tightened the last of the wires, hoping that she'd severed the connection in time. The Master's computer feed was dead, but so were all the other circuits to that room. She'd been trying to restore either the video or audio feed, but without success. The problem seemed to be on the other end, causing Nyssa to wonder nervously what the Master had done, and whether or not Tegan had anything to do with it. And who knew what condition the Doctor was in? The massive room seemed entirely too quiet, and Nyssa was only too eager to finish with the circuitry and join up with them.

As she reached for the panel, she heard the cavernous boom of a door opening and closing. Expecting Tegan, Nyssa jumped at the noise and turned round.

_Why did I let Tegan take the gun??_ she screamed to herself.

His black velvet looked spotty, but the silver trim on his collar was bright under the industrial lights of the transmitter room and he walked with brisk confidence in spite of the dried trickles of blood snaking down from his slightly tousled brown hair into his trim goatee. His hand held a small, black object, but he kept it harmlessly at his side as he began to traverse the catwalk. Incredibly, he approached from the other side of the platform and didn't see her crouching behind the console.

Nyssa gripped the panel in front of her so hard her knuckles hurt. She measured his approach with her eyes. The panel in her hands was solid, flexible metal that would be more than capable of laying him flat if he tried to get anywhere near her. She tensed her knees to leap, when the Master suddenly faltered, grabbed the railing for support and sagged, his hand hovering gingerly near his head.

Nyssa's heart jumped to her throat. Was he faking it? Did he suspect she was there and was hoping to draw her out? She peeked around the side of base to watch him. He kneeled on the catwalk, staring down sightlessly and uttered a strange sound. Nyssa couldn't believe it, had the Master just _whimpered_? He continued to hold onto the rail, and put down the tissue compression eliminator, gripping his chest. He looked like he was in genuine distress, but Nyssa was unmoved, save for surprise at finding him in such an apparently vulnerable state. She saw him start to mutter something and found herself leaning in to hear what it was.

"I've come too far to be stopped now," he gasped, evidently speaking to himself. "You can't defeat me. You _won't_ defeat me! Nothing can—!" Abruptly, he stopped, unbent his back and looked up in anguish at the domed ceiling. "So much evil! How could I have done all this?" he cried. He dropped his head again, as if in defeat. "Damn you, Doctor!" he spat furiously. He let go of the railing and slammed both fists onto the diamond plate floor of the catwalk.

Nyssa startled at the loud crash of his fists and nearly lost her grip on the panel. The bottom edge scraped loudly on the floor and she saw the Master look up. Their eyes met, and Nyssa froze.

His pale blue eyes flicked over her face with confused recognition. He looked startled, like he'd just been roused from a dream. "Nyssa?" he asked at last, as if unsure.

Nyssa could only stare back, baffled by this string of erratic behaviour. She didn't know what to do. Part of her wanted to swing that panel at his head and have done with it, but then there was that other bit of her that just couldn't do it, in spite of everything. That voice was her father's, that face, though perverted by the evil within, still undeniably his, and the only tangible link she still had with her home, the only thing left to remind her of who she was. The Master had done so many terrible things to her it would have been nothing to kill him in cold blood. But then she'd see some glimmer of her father in him and come back to her senses. There was always a better way, wasn't there?

The Master started to get up, a light smile playing across his mouth. "Yes, it is Nyssa, isn't it?" His expression softened almost sadly. "You look so very grown up. So much like your mother."

Nyssa's breath caught. She wanted to believe him, but knew she couldn't. "Stop!" she ordered, backing away until she was standing beside the exposed wiring.

The Master paused, still kneeling on the catwalk, looking confused and hurt. "Nyssa, what's the matter?"

The tone of his voice reverberated deep within her memory, dredging up countless conversations between them, many from her early childhood, when the pain of losing her mother still woke her up at night in tears. But when she sat on his lap, in his strong arms, nothing could touch her. If only life were that simple anymore. In some ways, that kind of innocence was what doomed Traken and her father.

Nyssa was not innocent anymore. "Stop it! You're not my father!" she cried, each syllable carrying with it the weight of her uncertainty and grief.

The Master stared at her, first in surprise, then confused, then wounded, until his expression began to harden. A change came over his whole demeanour and his innocent kneel was now a tense, deliberate poise. His lips curled in a smile that was more a sneer. Nyssa saw the TCE lying on the floor beside him and noted the careful position of his arm, preparing to snatch it. She also took notice of where he was standing, and that the connection for the force fields was dangling right next to her leg. Then she noticed that the Master seemed to be following her gaze.

"You're right," he intoned, locking gazes with her once more. "I am the Master, and you will obey me. Restore power to my machine."

Nyssa stared him down. "No."

A moment of breathless stillness stretched between the two. Then the Master lunged for his tissue compression eliminator. Nyssa whirled around and grabbed the loose connection. The Master took aim at her. She hadn't any other options. Nyssa jammed the wire back in place.

She was surrounded in a blaze of light as the force fields zapped in existence. The Master screamed. Nyssa shielded her eyes, enduring the terrible sound of energy burning through the Master's body, trying to block it out. As soon as his scream stopped, she pulled the connection out again.

The force fields vanished as quickly as they'd reappeared and she fled down the catwalk, her back to it all, without a second glance. She had to find Tegan and the Doctor. That's all that mattered now. Nyssa left the transmitter room and closed the door behind herself, leaning her back against it for a moment, just to collect herself. She closed her eyes and drew a breath. Pushing off the door, she looked both ways in the corridor, reminding herself which way led to the Master's command room and set off determinedly, not noticing the peculiar flash of light that momentarily spilled out through the porthole behind her.


	20. Chapter 20

Nyssa raced back to the control room, struggling to keep focused. He was dead. He was finally, truly dead, and by her hands. It was almost incomprehensible to imagine what her life would be like from now on without the faint, but constant weight of tragedy hanging over her. She was even troubled by the weak stirrings of satisfaction her actions had created. Deserved or not, killing was not something to be enjoyed. Her father would be appalled. Nyssa couldn't help sinking deeper into her musings, and soon failed to pay attention to where she was going, which is how she ran into a pair of armed guards.

She fell back, throwing up her hands defensively. "Please--!"

"You're one of that Doctor's friends, right?" one of the guards asked.

Nyssa nodded.

The guard holstered her weapon and offered Nyssa a hand. "Then it's good to see you." Nyssa hesitated for a second. Judging the guard to be sincere, she accepted the hand and got up. "The Captain's led an assault on the Master's command centre, but we've just lost radio contact with his whole squad. We're headed there now."

"I'm not sure I understand," Nyssa confessed.

"We heard what he was planning over the intercom, and we're shutting down this whole operation of his! Are you coming with? Are you any good with a gun?"

Nyssa didn't respond immediately. "Well, if you're after the Master, then you'll find him back that way, in the transmitter room. I-I just barely escaped from there."

The two guards exchanged a look. "Right," the female guard said, picking up her radio. "All units converge on the transmitter room."

"But—!"

"Thanks for your help," the guard cut her off quickly, ushering her compatriot past Nyssa. "Repeat; all units converge on the transmitter room!"

Nyssa watched them hurry off down the corridor. Well, they'd find out soon enough, wouldn't they? She reflected on that look the guards had traded when she'd mentioned the Master's whereabouts, and remembered that they'd said they'd lost contact with their group sent to break in. Developing an uneasy feeling in her gut, Nyssa turned and raced for the command centre, praying sickly that she wasn't too late.

She rounded the corner to junction three, and pulled up short. Utter devastation. A massive hole was blasted into the wall and dust and debris was scattered everywhere. Nyssa recognised the mounted gun sitting unarmed in front of the hole as the same type that had been aimed at the

TARDIS earlier, and thanked the stars that the Doctor—well, her Doctor—had been silly enough to open the door before they could shoot it.

Taking a cautious step closer, Nyssa spotted something else in the debris that made her stomach lurch. Bodies. Miniaturized bodies littered the floor around the gun. Toy soldiers, Nyssa thought blackly, and then promptly banished the thought. She knelt on the floor by them, quiet in her grief for people she didn't even know. They had died at the Master's hands, and he had died at hers. In a strange way, Nyssa felt as though that made her responsible for their deaths.

She sat back and wiped a stray curl out of her face. That's when she noticed another body lying on the floor of the blasted room. She immediately recognized the fair hair and striped trousers of her Doctor. Her worst fear had come true.

"Doctor!" she cried, rushing through the hole to kneel by his side. His eyes were closed and he was completely still. "Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry," she gasped, choking on a sob as she brushed a length of his soft, blond hair off his forehead. His scalp was dotted with painful-looking jab marks, and dark, dried blood crusted some of his hair. Nyssa's vision blurred with tears. She'd been too slow.

As she stroked his forehead, the Doctor's head suddenly turned, keeping her fingers in contact with his skin. She heard him moan softly. "Doctor?" she spoke gently, watching him grimace and blink. To her intense relief, his eyes flickered open and found her.

His smooth, boyish face lit up with a wane smile. "Nyssa," he murmured.

"Yes, it's me," she nodded, holding his hand.

He blinked drowsily and reached up, touching her cheek. "Nyssa," he repeated, sighing contentedly. His hand dropped, and his crystalline blue eyes began to lose focus.

"No," Nyssa urged, squeezing his hand. "Please, Doctor..."

He refocused on her and smiled again. For a moment, it lit his whole face with such joy and life that Nyssa felt hope. But all too quickly, it faded as his face relaxed and his eyelids fell partly closed. She felt his chest rise and fall in a sigh, and saw the light go out of eyes and his hand go limp. Nyssa felt her own chest tighten, and pressed her ear to his chest. She waited for a breathless eternity, until she heard a sluggish _lub-dub_. Listening to the other side, she heard an answering _dub-lub_. She timed them, and though regular, his heartbeat was alarmingly slow. His pupils weren't reactive, either. He was at least in a very deep coma, if not dying.

"What's happened, Susan, hmm?"

Nyssa sat up and turned round at the sound of the Doctor's voice. Seeing his state up-close was as disconcerting as it had been to see on the monitor. The bottom of his shirt was sheared off, and his torso rested on the seat of a chair, his wrists strapped fast and his head wired up to the nastiest kind of electrode contraption she'd ever seen. His skin looked positively yellow against his fair hair and white shirt, and he too sported dried trickles of blood down his face from his head. He was conscious, but just barely, and there was a definite strangeness in his darkly circled eyes.

Nyssa tore herself away from the figure on the floor and tried to apply herself to this new situation. "Doctor?"

"Yes. If you would be so good as to fetch Harry, I seem to be in some sort of medical distress."

She knelt in front of him, channelling reserves of tranquillity from somewhere. "It's Nyssa."

"I knew a Nyssa. There was so much sadness behind her eyes. Sometimes I wish I would have...It's difficult for me to get close..."

Nyssa felt tears in her eyes again, but not from sorrow. "It's alright, Doctor," she nodded, taking his hands, feeling a new kind of catharsis.

"...Tremas...trusted me. To look after her. Didn't protect her enough...just like Susan," he slurred, beginning to lose consciousness.

Nyssa couldn't help the wave of disappointment that crashed over her from his half-awake ramblings. She pushed it aside (along with the stab of remorse at her father's name) and gave him a gentle shake to rouse him. After all the deaths today, she wasn't about to lose both of him! "I'm here, Doctor. I'm right here. Tell me how to help you."

The Doctor opened his eyes wide and blinked rapidly, trying to stay awake. "Hello, Nyssa. How's your day been? Better than mine, I hope."

Nyssa wanted to free the Doctor from the electrodes, but hesitated. "Doctor, how do I get you out of here?"

"Button...on the control panel. Over there. Withdraws the needles. These RSK machines can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Or heads, as the case may be."

"Yes, I remember. Remote synaptical kinesis. But why would the Master need this? I thought he was already capable of telepathy?" Nyssa asked, finding the appropriate button on the control panel. She remembered that she'd cut power to the room, and wasn't surprised when pressing the button did nothing.

"In a limited way, yes. But the Master wanted more than to just read my thoughts. He wanted them for his own. That's the main purpose of an RSK machine, to transfer the contents of one brain into another. An extremely dangerous and tricky procedure that's been outlawed almost everywhere," the Doctor explained easily, still slurring badly.

"I know," Nyssa agreed. "We experimented with similar technology on Traken once. Doctor, there's no power. I can't release the mechanism from here." She returned to his side and managed to release his wrists from their bindings.

"Oh. I suppose it doesn't really matter. The best thing you can do is find Tegan and Adric and get back to the TARDIS," he sighed, rubbing his forearms. Nyssa noticed his skin, in addition to being yellowed, was also spotted with some sort of rash. More alarmingly, his normally sinewy wrists looked puffy and swollen. The restraints had not been that tight.

"Doctor--"

"Now don't argue with me on this! Adric knows how to operate some of the TARDIS controls, and with your combined skill, I'm sure you'll be able to manage until the Time Lords can pick you up. I'm sorry, but there's no other choice."

Great, he was delusional. "Doctor, Adric is--"

"Yes, I know. A momentary lapse," the Doctor cut her off grumpily, rubbing his forehead. "Just take Tegan back to the TARDIS and activate the homing signal. That should alert the High Council."

"Why? Doctor, what's happening to you?"

"Only what should have happened hours ago. I'm dying."

"What?"

"Blood toxicity." He forced a pained grin. "Even Time Lords need kidneys, Nyssa."

"But...but you'll regenerate, won't you?"

"There's not enough of me. And after what happened in that force field, it might not even matter. Hadronic energy is somewhat unpredictable. It could have permanently destroyed my regenerative abilities anyway."

Nyssa's breath caught. "You can't mean—!"

"Yes, Nyssa. But cheer up, the Master's been stopped. He wanted my knowledge, you see, so at least this way he'll never be able to try it again." He smiled again, his gaze distant. "I didn't even have to do anything, really."

"He's gone now, Doctor," Nyssa assured him.

"I'm sorry, Nyssa. I was wrong," he said, seeing her again. "Your father wasn't dead. Just suppressed by the Master's will. It was Tremas who stopped him in the end. Good old Tremas. With a strong right hook. Wasn't expecting _that_." The Doctor smirked, and blinked again, but it was obvious he was slipping away from her.

"Doctor, hold on!" Nyssa urged, her hands on his shoulders, "Don't give up, please. Let me think of something." The Doctor's eyes began to roll up into his head and he started to slump. Nyssa looked around frantically. She had one Doctor whose body was failing rapidly…and another whose body seemed all right, but whose mind was basically gone. She looked at the other chair and electrode cap, and at the powerless computer bank along the wall. She tried to recall the primer she'd had on remote synaptical kinesis back home. It wasn't much to go on, but it was all she had. She checked the Doctor's pulse. It was weak.

"By all the saints!" Nyssa turned and saw another guard standing by the hole, staring at the situation in horror.

The Doctor wouldn't hesitate. He'd try anything, if there were even the smallest chance of success. Nyssa owed him the same. "I need power restored to this room immediately! The controls are in the transmitter room," she ordered.

"Wha—?"

"Hurry! Now! And find Tegan. The girl in white."

"Uh-all right. Yes. Will do," the baffled guard stammered.

Nyssa turned back to the Doctor, her mind racing. He appeared completely unconscious. Nyssa fretted that she could definitely use another pair of hands right now. _Where was Tegan??_ "Doctor, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm need you to hold on just a little longer. I'm going to try something," she told him. His slack face reminded her of how his other self had looked, sleeping in the TARDIS. But she wouldn't feel guilty about that. She loved him, and she was going to try and save his life, for everyone's sake.

**o0o**

Tegan sat up groggily. It took her a moment to remember where she was, and when she did, she immediately felt incredibly stupid about it.

She'd left Nyssa in the transmitter room with every intention of walking up to the first guards she came across and convincing them to help her attack the Master. Or at the very least, make such a scene about it that they'd be forced to report to the Master and interrupt his interrogation of the Doctor. Instead, when she'd walked past an open storeroom and saw a door open on the other side and heard the voices of a group of guards, she'd decided to go through and confront them. Unfortunately, she hadn't thought to turn on a light and the last thing she remembered was tripping on a cable, and a burst of stars. As Tegan rubbed the back of her head, she realized she must have been knocked unconscious.

"Perfect time for a concussion, Tegan!" she berated herself dizzily, wondering how long she'd been out. She staggered to her feet and flicked the light switch, kicking moodily at the loose cable strung across the floor that had tripped her. She finished rubbing her head and looked at her hand. She was going to have a bump, but at least hadn't broken or cut anything. "Some help I turned out to be!" Her mind cleared. "Rabbits! The Doctor!" she cried. She had to get to the control room!

Tegan whirled around to dash back out into the corridor, and ran headlong into someone else coming into the room. She staggered backwards into a stack of crates, dropping her gun. "Hey! Watch where you're—!" Tegan looked up and her words died in her mouth.

She almost didn't recognize him at first, he was so out of sorts, but when he swept down, picked up the gun and held it on her, all her doubts evaporated. The Master looked badly dishevelled and bloodied, and he was shirtless, using his other hand to hold up his singed and torn black velvet trousers. If not for the furious, lethal gleam in his eyes and tense grip on the gun, it might have been funny.

"I'll thank you to stand right there and not so much as blink, Miss Jovanka!" he snarled, backing towards a large storage bin in the centre of the room. Hurriedly transferring the gun to his other hand (still holding his trousers), he reached behind himself and opened the side of the bin. Tegan registered dimly that it must be his TARDIS, and hurriedly tried to think of some way of stopping him without getting herself shot. She saw a small box on the floor by her foot and thought about kicking it up at him. As if sensing her thoughts, the Master leapt back into the crate with a taunting chuckle and pulled the door shut.

"No!" Tegan yelled as it began to fade away with a breeze and a rusty groan. She ran up to it and tried to slam it with her fists, but her hands passed through air. She skidded on her heels and went toppling into a stack of crates opposite the Master's now-vanished TARDIS. "Bollocks!" she cursed.

"What's going on in here?" another voice demanded.

Tegan wobbled out of the pile of dislodged crates and squinted at the guard standing in the doorway, his gun out, but at his side.

Tegan was so frustrated with herself and angry that she barely knew where to begin. "The Master—!"

"Don't worry, he's been apprehended in the transmitter room," the guard cut her off authoritatively.

"What? That's im—!"

"Are you Tegan?" the guard cut her off again.

"Wh—? Yes. But—"

"Your associate is looking for you. Please come with me."

"Hold on, what do you mean, the Master—?"

"I told you, he's been arrested. It's all right. Your friend needs your help. Something to do with the Doctor. Quickly."

Right. Nyssa and the Doctor. Still deeply puzzled, Tegan judged it the wrong time to argue with the burly, armoured man with the gun and followed him out into the corridor. She was still a little unsteady on her feet after hitting her head, but figured that was the least of her worries. And captured or not, the Master wasn't here anymore, which was enough to satisfy Tegan for the time being.


	21. Chapter 21

Tegan's light-headedness persisted, and she nearly fell turning a corner, prompting the guard to reach out and grab her arm. "You all right?" he asked.

Tegan regained her balance, still rubbing the knot on her head, and nodded. "Just a little wobbly."

The guard began to respond, when the radio on his hip crackled: "Private Ornian!"

He picked it up. "Private Ornian here."

"We could use you in the transmitter room. The prisoner's proving a bit uncooperative."

Tegan listened closely and was surprised to hear the definite sounds of a scuffle in the background, including one very familiar voice: _"Let me go! You've got the wrong man!"_

Tegan's impulse was to think she'd heard wrong. "That sounded like—!"

The private cut her off with an "I-told-you-so" glance. "Understood. On my way." He fastened his radio back on his belt. "Sorry, Miss. Duty calls. Can you get to the control room on your own?"

"Yeah," she answered automatically, still trying to reconcile what she'd just heard with what she'd just seen.

"We're nearly there, anyway. Just two more junctions and a left should get you there. Gotta go," Private Ornian explained, heading off in the opposite direction.

"What? Oh, thanks," Tegan said, watching him go. The Master must have miscalculated and landed his TARDIS in the transmitter room; that was the only explanation she could think of. A lucky mistake. She resumed her walk towards the control room, but her throbbing skull stopped her. She pressed a hand against the wall to stabilize herself and shook her head to clear it. "No time for a concussion, Tegan! The Doctor and Nyssa need you!" she urged herself quietly. Pushing off the wall, she made herself jog the rest of the way. As she made the left turn, she pulled up short, aghast at the debris and the gigantic hole in the wall.

"Oh, no!" she groaned. This didn't bode well at all.

"Tegan?" a familiar voice called out from the hole.

"Nyssa!" Tegan cried out with relief, the tension relaxing from her shoulders when she saw Nyssa's brown curls poke past the wall. Hurrying to join her, she was unprepared for the sight that awaited her inside. "What happened?" she wondered, gobsmacked at the sight of two Doctors strapped to chairs, electrode caps latched onto their heads.

"The Master was trying to get the equation from the Doctor by using this machine to steal his memories. He was only partly successful," Nyssa explained shortly, her voice laced with remorse.

Tegan knelt by the half-Doctor, her hand over her mouth, heart starting to pound frantically.

"We've got to get them out!"

"Not just yet, Tegan."

"What do you mean, not yet? Look at them!" Tegan insisted shrilly, whirling to confront Nyssa.

"Yes, look at them, Tegan! One is gravely wounded and dying, and the other has had his mind completely erased."

"I don't understand how this could even happen!" Tegan shook her head, staring from one to the other.

"Tegan, please, I need your help, you must concentrate," Nyssa urged, grabbing Tegan by the arms. Surprised, Tegan snapped to attention. "This machine of the Master's, it can transfer consciousness. We need to do that for the Doctor."

"What?"

"We need to transfer the mind from, well, your Doctor into the body of...mine. If we don't, he'll--they'll—both die."

Tegan couldn't quite grasp what Nyssa was telling her, but judged that it probably wasn't completely necessary. It usually wasn't, as long as she was able to do as she was told. "What do you need me to do?"

Nyssa studied her face, and suddenly her brow creased worriedly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, fine," Tegan answered nonchalantly (as she tried to keep Nyssa's face in focus).

"Are you sure? Your eyes look a bit strange."

"I hit my head a while back, that's all. Look, enough about me, we have to help the Doctor."

"Yes, you're right. I'm going to--" Nyssa began to explain, when the whole Doctor suddenly twitched in his chair. Nyssa flew to his side and checked his vital signs. She timed his pulse quickly and sighed in guarded relief. Then she paused, regarded his unconscious face and briefly stroked his cheek. As she did so, Tegan noticed that deeply guilty look pass across Nyssa's face again. Nyssa glanced over at the other Doctor, and her cheeks flushed a little. She stood up and turned back to Tegan, the guilt, remorse and pain vanishing, but slowly. "We have to—"

"What's the matter with you?" Tegan had to ask, trying to casually lean against the computer bank for balance.

"Nothing, I'm fine."

"No, you're not. What happened between you two?" Tegan demanded, cocking her head to indicate the comatose whole Doctor (the movement nearly unbalanced her again, but she saved herself).

Nyssa looked pained. She glanced from one Doctor to the other, back to Tegan, and then back to the whole Doctor, her gaze lingering sadly. "It's my problem, Tegan," she said softly.

"And we're in this together, which makes it my problem, too. Now tell me what it is. Cripes, Nyssa, you keep looking at him like _you_ were the one that cut him in half!"

Nyssa shook her head miserably and went over to the computer bank.

Tegan worried suddenly that she'd struck the wrong nerve. "Is it to do with the Master?" she asked gently.

"No!" Nyssa exclaimed, clearly wiping her eyes, "For once, it's got nothing to do with the bloody Master!"

Tegan was shocked into silence.

"Oh, good, they've turned the power back on," Nyssa commented abruptly, fiddling with the buttons on the computer bank. Then she stood still, drew a breath, and turned to face her. "Oh, Tegan, I've done something very irresponsible." Her soft eyes met Tegan's, and when they did, Tegan had never seen them so clouded with guilt and confusion.

Tegan's stomach twisted a little. "What do you mean?" Nyssa hesitated, and looked for a moment like she might cry. "Nyssa, what happened?" Tegan pressed, now very concerned, indeed.

"It was so stupid of me, I—I don't know what possessed me to do it, really. When we were alone, the Doctor and I—well, that version of him and I—were in the TARDIS, he-he...the way he looked at me, I wanted to believe...but I knew something wasn't right. I could tell he wasn't himself, but I let him carry on, anyway. It was cruel and selfish of me, and he'd never forgive me if he knew."

"If he knew what, Nyssa?"

Nyssa stared distantly at the two comatose figures. "I wanted him to love me. For so long, I've wanted...but he doesn't. Not like that, anyway. And it's all right, I understand. At least, I thought I did."

Tegan's aching brain was getting impatient with all this. "Well I don't! What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that _that_ version of him did. And I went along with it." Nyssa met Tegan's gaze again, that tortured pain on her face communicating the unspoken truth more clearly than words ever could.

Tegan's jaw dropped. "What? You don't mean...you and him?" she pointed to the unconscious, whole Doctor. "You and…_him_?!"

Nyssa nodded miserably.

Tegan wanted to freak out. Her mind was so hazy that she was almost worried this was a dream. News like this deserved a proper freak-out, but one look at Nyssa's heavily distraught face, and she knew she couldn't. For once, it was up to Tegan to keep it all together. "...I had no idea you felt like that," she confessed honestly. _Though I shouldn't be surprised, really._

"This isn't how I wanted it, believe me. It was a horrible mistake, I knew it at once. And now..."

"Now, we save the Doctor's life," Tegan interrupted sternly. Nyssa looked at her blankly. Tegan turned and made a show of looking over the controls. "You said something about using this lot to transfer consciousness, right?"

"Er...yes..." Nyssa nodded distractedly.

Tegan exhaled heavily and rolled her eyes. Time to play the sensible one. "Look Nyssa, I understand you're upset, but trust me, you're overreacting. It's natural. You're not the first to do something foolish for love, you know."

"Oh, I know that. But I shouldn't have done it at all. And how can I possibly expect the Doctor to forgive me?"

Tegan paused thoughtfully. Perhaps tripping over that wire had rattled her brain just loose enough, because suddenly she realized something important. "Why would you need the Doctor's forgiveness? It's poor Duple-Doc over there you did it with. The real Doctor was with _me_ the whole time, remember?"

"Yes, but I didn't know that. As far as I knew—"

"But now you know different, don't you? It was a mistake, and by the look of things," she hastened to add, glancing at the unconscious whole Doctor, "Not one you have to live with. It's not him, Nyssa. You know that."

Nyssa didn't appear convinced. "I don't want to keep secrets from the Doctor. On Traken, the spirit of an action was every bit as important as the action itself, and I know the spirit of what I did. Besides, I think he might already know."

"Let's not jump to conclusions just yet," Tegan tutted confidently, "Now, how do we do this transference thing?"

Nyssa still appeared troubled. "You really think I oughtn't say anything?"

"You don't have to, because you didn't do anything to him to justify it! Trust me, all right?"

"...All right."

Tegan smiled reassuringly, and then almost fell over from a wave of dizziness. Nyssa grabbed her shoulder.

"Tegan!"

"Let's do this before _I_ pass out!" Tegan added nervously.

Nyssa nodded. "I'll configure the programme."

"Before what, Jo?"

Tegan turned and knelt by the Doctor (her half of him) as he stirred from his stupor. "Doctor?"

He blinked groggily. "'S that you, Teeg…?"

"Yes, Nyssa and I are both right here, Doctor, and we're going to save you," Tegan said with a conviction she scarcely believed.

"No. Go…TARDIS."

Tegan tried not to panic at the yellow jaundice of his eyes and the incoherence of his speech. She forced a confident, "Ha!" Patting his hand, she continued, "Just you try and get rid of me again, Doctor! I'm not leaving without you and neither is Nyssa."

The Doctor's eyelids fell closed. "No. Too late…"

"But we've got power to the RSK machine, Doctor!" Nyssa said, kneeling opposite Tegan.

The Doctor turned his head and forced his eyes open again, struggling to look at Nyssa.

"_That_ got his attention," Tegan remarked.

"Don't you dare," the Doctor intoned unexpectedly.

Tegan shot Nyssa a worried look, but Nyssa appeared firm. "The other one's dead, Doctor. His mind is gone; he's just an empty shell. We can use his body to save you."

"Nyssa, no."

Nyssa bit her lip and fixed the Doctor with a firm gaze. "He isn't you, Doctor. If he were, the Master would never have needed you. It's just a body. This can work, I know it can, you just have to trust me. I would never do anything to harm you, you know that."

Nyssa's eyes flicked briefly from the Doctor to Tegan. Tegan nodded encouragingly, but Nyssa merely returned her gaze to the Doctor.

"…Slow and steady…" the Doctor slurred, beginning to lose consciousness again.

"What?" Tegan asked.

"…Wins the race…" he mumbled almost unintelligibly.

"There's no more time to waste. Help me with the controls, Tegan, and do just as I tell you," Nyssa ordered brusquely.

"I hope this works," Tegan admitted, joining her at the computer bank.

Nyssa poised her hands over the keypad. "So do I."


	22. Chapter 22

_What a strange dream_, the Doctor thought groggily. He felt as though he'd been asleep for ages. Stranger still, he didn't even remember going to bed. _Oh well. Must've had a good reason for it_. He rolled over to get a bit more comfortable, and rolled right up against something warm and solid. Something warm and solid that moved slightly and sighed. There was someone else in bed with him!

The Doctor woke with a start and looked. Tegan?! He bolted upright, blinking in the sudden light that switched on automatically. This was Tegan and Nyssa's room in the TARDIS. And this was Tegan's bed, all right. With her still in it, in a simple white nightgown, sleeping contentedly.

The Doctor stared down at her in deep confusion and vague stirrings of dismay. Right, Tegan. She'd come back after that business with Omega in Amsterdam. But why would he be sharing a bed with Tegan? He then noticed he was bare from the waist up. Some calamity seemed to have befallen his braces, and there was no trace of his shirt, jumper or coat anywhere. Nor did he see his trainers.

The Doctor got up, careful not to disturb Tegan and scratched his head, disturbed by the apparent gap in his memory. "Ouch!" he yipped, his fingernail grazing a sore spot on his scalp. He rubbed it, and came across another sore spot, then another. He crouched and tiptoed over to the girls' mirror and examined his head. His scalp was dotted with small, scabbed-over cuts. It looked like a flesh-and-bone pincushion! More distressingly, he couldn't remember how it had happened. Except… had it all been a dream?

He heard Tegan stir behind him, and he turned in a panic, hoping she wouldn't wake and find him standing there, half-dressed. Fortunately, Tegan merely rolled onto her back and settled down again. The Doctor took that as a good moment to slip out of the room. He should find Nyssa; maybe she knew what had happened. But he couldn't let her see him like this. Pulling Tegan's door gently closed, he made off for the wardrobe room, hoping his memory would clear in the process.

**o0o**

Nyssa leaned on the TARDIS console, sightlessly flipping through the pages of a maths text. It was difficult to concentrate on Fubini's theorem without knowing if the Doctor had come through all right or not. He'd had enough of his wits about him to set the TARDIS for flight through the vortex, but had been mostly unconscious ever since. Tegan's promise to look after him had only partly assuaged Nyssa's concern, though she appreciated Tegan's thoughtfulness in offering.

"Nyssa?"

Nyssa startled. Snapping the book shut, she looked over and breathed a sigh of relief. Tegan poked her head inside the interior doors. "Has the Doctor come this way?" Tegan asked conspiratorially.

"No. Did he wake? I thought you were watching him?"

Tegan stepped inside, pulling the interior door shut behind her. She was in a fuzzy dressing gown, and her short hair looked a bit tousled. "Sorry, I fell asleep. But he was right there with me the whole time, I swear. I thought if he woke up I'd have noticed. He must have been sneaky about it."

"Oh, no, Tegan! He could be anywhere," Nyssa groaned, remembering the difficulties they'd had keeping track of him the last time he'd been unwell. And this time they didn't even have a zero cabinet! "If you were tired you should have told me."

Tegan scowled and yawned. "I'm sorry. It just sort of came over me all suddenly."

Nyssa sighed heavily and set her book down on the console. Never a moment's rest for her, it seemed! "That's all right, I understand. But come on, we'd better look for him."

Nyssa took one step towards the interior door when it popped open. "Nyssa! Would you mind telling me—?" The Doctor stopped short in the doorway, his eyes fastening on Tegan. He hesitated, then grinned uncomfortably. "Oh, hello, Tegan. Up so soon?"

Nyssa looked at Tegan, uncertain of how much she'd told him, or how much he may have remembered. Disconcertingly, Tegan appeared to share her uncertainty. But Tegan turned to the Doctor, her confident mask back in place. "I could say the same to you, Sleepyhead."

The Doctor looked off-guard for a moment. "Er, yes. Fair enough." He fingered his scalp and eyed the two of them. "Er…is everything all right here, Nyssa?"

Nyssa followed Tegan's lead and shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course, Doctor. Why wouldn't it be?"

The Doctor hesitated, still rubbing his head.

Nyssa was gratified to see that he'd found his wardrobe, and was once more smartly outfitted in beige jacket, jumper and trainers. Nyssa felt a surreptitious nudge from Tegan. _Right. The cover story. _"Is your head still bothering you?" Nyssa asked.

"Yes…these small wounds, I don't recall—"

"From the Matrix machinery, yes," Nyssa cut in emphatically.

"What?" the Doctor said.

"Don't you remember? You got them on Gallifrey when you were hooked up into the Matrix, communicating with Omega."

"Damon said you might not remember," Tegan added.

"Damon…? But the Matrix doesn't—"

Tegan glanced at Nyssa, flicking her brows significantly. "Looks like he was right."

"What are you two—?"

"A delayed neurogenic response, Doctor," Nyssa said quickly, "caused by the mental stress you suffered whilst in the Matrix. Damon said it might affect your recent memory."

The Doctor looked less than convinced. "So you mean to say that we've just come from Amsterdam?"

"A few days ago, yes," Nyssa was able to answer honestly. "Don't you remember?"

The Doctor knotted his pale brows together in thought. "I remember…Was it was anything to do with the Master?"

Tegan snorted. "Why _would_ it be? You must have been having a dream or something, Doc."

Nyssa was tempted to elbow Tegan, worried that she was overdoing it a little. "Are you all right, Doctor?" Nyssa asked gently. "Perhaps you should rest."

"Er…no, I'm—I'm quite all right, thank you. I think. I—forgive me for imposing. I—I don't know why I would have chosen your room to sleep in. I suppose it _must_ have been neural confusion."

"What's that in your hand, Doctor?" Nyssa asked, noticing how he absently fingered a small box.

The Doctor tore his startled eyes away from Tegan and looked down at his hand. "Oh, this. I found it in my pocket after I woke up."

"What is it?"

The Doctor held up the small box and gave it a quick shake. It rattled. "Well, that's what's odd. It seems to be some sort of ammunition cartridge. How it came to be in my pocket, I have no idea." He stared down at it, slid one end out and pulled out of one of the cylindrical metal casings. "Fascinatingly simple things, really. Such a small thing, yet inside is a collection of even smaller objects, apparently even simpler in appearance, yet actually more complex…" Nyssa watched his face light up with the spellbound grin of a child, "So many levels of complexity, of structure. It's all quite beautiful." He chuckled sadly, "I don't often find the time to notice such things anymore. We should, shouldn't we, Nyssa?"

Nyssa felt a lump develop in her throat. She swallowed. "Yes, Doctor."

The Doctor looked up at her quickly, as if he'd forgotten she was there. He drew a breath and put the ammunition cartridge in his jacket pocket. "Er, anyway, it's amazing the odds and ends that turn up round here. Someday I really must do a thorough cleaning-out of the TARDIS."

"Whatever you say, Doctor," Tegan agreed.

The Doctor looked at Tegan a bit uncomfortably and reached up to scratch his head. He winced and promptly stopped. "Right. Well, then, if all is in order here, then…" he trailed off, staring quizzically at his fingers. He shook his head. "Hmm."

Nyssa was on pins and needles. Had she been wrong? Had more of her Doctor survived than she'd thought? If he remembered…! "Doctor, are you sure you're all right?

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Fine. I just haven't dreamt in a while, that's all."

"If it was about the Master, then I'd call it a nightmare," Tegan remarked.

Nyssa elbowed her discreetly. "Either way, it wasn't real."

The Doctor cocked his head. "_'Judge of your natural character by what you do in your dreams._'" He shook himself and grinned. "Well, all's well that ends well, I suppose! In fact, who's in the mood for tea? I've just remembered a recipe for Raxicalican black tea that I think you'll both find quite intriguing." Nyssa smiled in return as the Doctor turned and left the console room, muttering to himself about where he'd put that tin, and how long to steep the leaves.

As soon as the door was closed behind him, Tegan heaved a huge sigh and leaned back against the console. "That was close!"

Nyssa still found it a bit difficult to be at ease. "Are you sure we're doing the right thing?"

"Believe me, I wish I could forget it all like that. But he's alive and well, the Master's gone and the universe is safe."

"I suppose, it just seems cruel not to tell him the truth, that's all," Nyssa sighed. It was easy enough for Tegan, Nyssa reflected. She didn't have to live with the niggling regret that still floated at the edge of Nyssa's mind. She'd forgive herself eventually; it was just going to take a little time. But she'd cope. That's what she was good at. Yes, it was better this way.

"Trust me, Nyssa. You don't want to bother him with a load of messy details," Tegan assured her gently. "Now I ought to get dressed before I give the Doctor a heart attack," she added mischievously, heading for the interior door. "Maybe it'll help to think of it this way," she paused to add, "It's like my Aunt Vanessa liked to say, 'A lady doesn't kiss and tell!'"


End file.
